Stonar Wins Globeducate Academic Olympics 2021

November normally sees our Able and Talented Co-ordinator, Mrs Kirsty Bouchard, taking a select group of Year 10 pupils to visit one of our Globeducate sister schools to take part in the Academic Olympics. This year, due to the restrictions on travel, our trip to ICS Milan for the 7th Academic Olympics was a virtual one.

The focus of this year's Academic Olympics was UN goal #11 - Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Our intrepid team faced a variety of challenges on this theme.

On the first day, the Stonar team started with a problem solving mission to identify five sustainable cities. They then had to design and write a postcard from each city describing how these cities were sustainable. The challenge culminated with putting together a travel itinerary between each city that was low in cost, time and carbon footprint.

Mission 2 was to produce a PSA to encourage the audience to improve the sustainability of their local area. Taking on the challenge of food waste they wrote, directed, filmed and edited a minute long PSA that clearly explained the problem of food waste and what each individual can do to minimise it.

The following day started with a more traditional Academic Olympics challenge of Maths and Science problems. The team then had the task of creating a 3D skyline of a local Eco-city. After some discussion, they settled on Bristol and using junk collected by staff, they built very recognisable models of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and Castle Park View; an eco-building that is being built onto an old hospital site.

The final mission was to create a website that explained sustainability and showcased the work they had done over the two days. You can see their website here.

It was truly impressive to see the group working co-operatively together to attempt each task. They approached each new mission with enthusiasm and supported one another by listening to each other’s ideas without fear or favour, and as a result, they grew in confidence and friendship. Their cheers when they were announced winners of the competition brought Headmaster, Mr Way, and Deputy Head (Academic), Mr Ebden, out of their offices. However, given the success of our pupils, they did not mind the interruption to their work!

Thank you ICS Milan for putting on a truly fantastic event that united over 100 students from 22 schools in the common goal of highlighting the issue of sustainability. We are sure it will be two days that the select group of Esme C, Thomas F, Charlotte I, Kosi O and David S remember for a long time to come.