A three school climate change event finally took place in April 2022 after a two year delay due to Covid restrictions. The project in South Devon brought together Dartmouth Academy, Churston Ferrers Grammar and King Edward V1 Community College in Totnes. and centred around a screening of the climate change narrative short film ‘Hot Air’. The online interactive event linked up around 150 students from the three schools, with specially invited guest speaker Gillian Burke from BBC’s Springwatch.

Hot Air was produced by Les Veale as a potential aid to the global warming debate and, because the river Dart features as a backdrop to the film, Les decided to contact teachers at the local schools forming a triangle around the river, with a view to setting up a coordinated eco event. After Covid restrictions were eased, the project went ahead with the help of the teachers and hosts at each school, Liam Collings at KEVICC, Jo Hadley at Churston and Hettie Eggleton at Dartmouth.

The hour long event proved to be a great success. The students were engaged with the film and the debate, and found Gillian Burke’s input particularly inspiring. The teachers were so pleased by the success of the project that they are hoping to continue the collaboration and plan a future event. As for Les, he’s hoping to make this an annual event leading up to the Easter break, with a new guest speaker invited each year, looking at progress made locally and globally on reducing the climate change threat.