On Thursday January 14th, 2010, the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) launched its twelfth annual Primary Schools' "Hands-On" environmental competition.

The theme of the newly structured competition is Nature in my Neighbourhood - a theme which aims to help the participating schools and their communities gain an understanding of the importance of island biodiversity and sustainable development.

The competition is pegged to the United Nations' declaration of 2010 as the International year of Biodiversity (IYB) - the year that celebrates the diversity of life on Earth, including every plant, animal and micro-organism.

This Primary Schools' Environmental Programme is the only one of its kind in Trinidad and Tobago. Over the past 11 years the competition has been hosted in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and has also encouraged collaboration amongst various stakeholders including government ministries, environmental agencies and small communities.

Speaking at the launch, Senior Environmental Education Officer at the EMA, Tisha Marajh said, "We are excited about this competition because it is designed to allow primary school students to be directly involved in environmental projects, learning and discovering for themselves with their teacher acting as a facilitator. Having reviewed the list of participating schools for the past 11 years, we've come to realize that the same schools enter and win every year. While we applaud their efforts with respect to sustainable projects, we would like to expand the target school population. The EMA has therefore decided to change the structure of the competition and has initiated a pilot project where we target different educational districts each year."

This year, the EMA is targeting the North Eastern Educational District, with the hope that this focus will give them an opportunity to develop key biodiversity messages as they explore the theme Nature in my Neighbourhood. Students are required to identify, design, plan and execute an environmentally focused project. This project involves positive action on the part of the students that would contribute to solving an existing environmental problem or change negative attitudes and behaviours about the environment, among the school population and the community it serves.

As part of the "Hands-On" Programme for 2010 the EMA also designed a special sustainability competition to address the continuity of environmental activities that were initiated by schools that participated in the 2009 Competition. During the International Year of Biodiversity 2010, there will be numerous activities and programmes based on these messages in collaboration with stakeholders. This particular programme runs from January - June 2010.

For more information about our environmental school programmes, and guidelines for this competition, please contact the EMA at 628-8042 ext. 2313