The Cool Suffolk project was funded through the Suffolk Strategic Partnership's Performance Reward Grant and was Suffolk Climate Change Partnership in partnership with BT, East of England Co-op and Suffolk Education Business Partnership, led the project.
The idea of the Cool Suffolk project was stemmed from a comment made by a St Edmundsbury Youth Forum member in 2007 "Climate change films are patronising and boring". Suffolk Climate change partnership (previously known as CRed Suffolk decided to challenge the young people of Suffolk to come up with their own communications on climate change that they would find interesting and inspiring and be non-paper based. The only restriction on the student's creativity were that it had to be about climate change and carbon emissions and the actions people could take to reduce their impact. The judges were looking for entries which had good quality information, made good use of the technology they chose and were in some way entertaining and humorous.
The competition was open to all Secondary Schools in Suffolk and was launched last October.. Students had until February to create their communications and get them into the judging team. Lots of exciting entries were received and from these were selected 12 finalists. These finalists were invited to attend a presentation event at BT at Adastral Park.
The finalists were asked to present their entry to a judging panel consisting of Dr Adam Rutherford, broadcaster and journalist; Chris Tuppen, BT Group's Sustainability Officer; Adam Dyster, Defra Young Climate Change Champion for the East of England; Emma Dixon, Environmental Strategy Officer at Suffolk County Council and Daniel Case, BT Openreach Apprentice. The judges selected 3 winning entries and the audience were asked to vote for their favourite as well. The winning entries were:
Best Use of Humour and Entertainment - Hartismere High School, Eco-police Team
Cameron McKie
Ruaraidh Oliver
Rory Stiff
Will Dikinson
Best Use of Technology - Chantry High School, KDCM Save the Planet
Craig Riches
Kimberley Edwards
Deanna Swarman
Matthew Read
Best Factual Content - Kesgrave High School
Melissa Postma
Audience Vote Winner - Thurston Community College, Jimmy Film
Owain Hobbs
Mikey Collyer
Christopher Gregory
These groups worked with Paul Press of Offshoot Films Great Cornard to produce professional versions of their winning entries. The groups have produced 3 films and these films will be used by the Suffolk Climate Change Partnership and Local Authorities across Suffolk when they are working with schools and communities on climate change.
Bin It and Transport to School
