• December 4 was the fourth annual Call to Earth Day.
• Young people across the world took part in a collective effort to help the planet.
• Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.
But events will continue in the days and weeks to come. Thanks to all the schools, organizations and individuals who took part, and helped protect the planet.
You can see more from the Call to Earth team at cnn.com/calltoearth
This piece of eco-art, created by secondary school students at St Clare’s School in Porthcawl, Wales, represents our responsibility to the planet.
“The faces and words represent people from four generations, which we can identify with our families. The clock and world represent where we live now in time and space, being connected to people all over the world. We wanted this to be colourful showing hope for future generations,” explained the students.
It was just one of the 28 Cognita schools that took part in this year’s Call to Earth Day.
Greenislife Initiative called over 150 students to action in northern Nigeria, planting 500 trees.
While in Lagos, 20 schools participated in Pakam Nigeria’s Recycle Together campaign. The organization aims to educate students about the importance of creating a greener future for all.
“I appreciate Pakam for this beautiful initiative, Recycle Together, because it enables the students to widen their horizon about the environment around us, to understand that waste can be turned into wealth,” said Yusuf Zainab, a teacher at Ikosi Senior High School.
Students of all ages are getting involved with Call to Earth Day at Singapore School Clark.
Preschool students decorated paper plates with colourful animals - symbolizing their promise to protect our planet.
Primary and secondary school students are creating “EcoArt” and “Nature Bouquets,” involving flowers and powerful messages about conservation.
A group of Year 10 Creative Arts students at Repton Al Barsha in the United Arab Emirates gave an inspired performance at the school’s Call to Earth competition, which had the theme of “My Future Self in a Sustainable World.”
Over 45 volunteers in Karachi, Pakistan, have cleaned more than 250kg (551 pounds) of trash off the beach, delivering it to a local recycling company.
The initiative was organized by the Karachi hub of the Global Shapers Community.
School students assembled to clean the streets of Manyema Market in Moshi, in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania.
The operation was organized by Floresta, an NGO aiming to reverse deforestation and poverty in the East African country by “transforming the lives of the rural poor.”
Floresta plans to work collectively with schools and other local groups to plant hundreds of trees across December and raise awareness of the importance of environmental protection.
Students at Dunalistair school in Santiago, Chile, started a clever initiative which they called the “Happy Compost Project.” With the help of teachers and other school staff, they began recycling organic waste, turning it into beach compost.
The students hope that their future selves will continue to act positively in order to reduce their carbon footprints.
“Dear future us… Back then the Earth needed us to act, and we did. So, keep striving to make a difference, no matter how small the steps may seem,” said one student.
Elsewhere in Nigeria, in Abia state, the Plogging Nigeria Club hosted a cleanup at the Ohokobe Market.
Alongside a busy road in the city of Umuahia, 30 volunteers collected over 35 bags of trash from the market.
While the Zero Plastic Straw Community hosted a cleanup in Bariga, Lagos State.
Having also conducted a clean-up of its own in Lagos, Green Hub Africa headed into schools to help pupils create useful objects from recycled items, including furniture from plastic bottles.
Elsewhere in Lagos, Team Illuminate’s volunteers cleaned up the street in front of two community schools. More than 20 participants collected 10 bags of waste including plastic bags, sachets, cigarette packs, cans, bottles, and more.
Team Illuminate also educated over 120 high school students on the Call to Earth message, using the wisdom of Yoruba Proverbs.
Preventing plastic from polluting the waterways of Lagos, Nigeria, this community rallied around a cause to bring a little holiday cheer to all.
Using over 2,000 Green PET bottles, 300 community members constructed a massive Christmas Eco Tree.
“I love this tree because it was recycled,” a young community member explained.
Organized by the FABE International Foundation, the tree can be found alongside the Lekki Epe Highway in Lagos.
Pupils of Al Hekma International School in Bahrain have been busy cleaning the beaches of the Persian Gulf while reflecting on the Earth’s natural beauty in letters to their future selves.
Reminiscing about the “breathtaking” meadow view from the windowsill of their childhood home, student Rodayna penned her commitment to ensuring similar sights would endure for coming generations.
“Unfortunately, while some others may still appreciate this kind of scenery, many close their windows due to the polluted, filthy, orange sky,” Rodayna wrote. “Whenever they look outside, they find plastic waste. I hope you do something about this in your time, as this planet deserves to thrive and survive. These people deserve to see beautiful nature and breathe pure air.”
Fellow pupil Omar Mohamed Abdulrahman echoed that promise, writing: “I want to make a noticeable change that inspires others, so a ripple effect can be created. I truly cherish the world we live in.”
Ninety-five participants at Calpe Port in Alicante, Spain, gathered for a large-scale waste-clearing operation. Organized by Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir, part of the The EU-CONEXUS alliance, they cleaned up around a ton of waste from the seabed and surrounding areas, with the help of local partners.
The students of iELEV High School in Turkey voted to use art as the language for their message that “diversity is not a threat, but a richness.”
Having carefully chosen fabrics and photographs related to nature, culture, and humanity, a band of pupils weaved them into a collage resembling one of the natural symbols of change: a wave.
“We sought to emphasize that cultural differences around the world do not divide us but instead create connections, enabling us to live in harmony with nature and protect our environment as a shared responsibility,” the team said.
Pupils at IB Mthiebi in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi embarked on a month-long project to promote sustainable development in the country.
Titled “Explore, Preserve and Exhibit Georgia,” the educational initiative saw students ranging from 5 to 17-years-old plant sunflowers and clean up local areas, including a nearby church.
“We see it as our duty to clean our country and make it beautiful,” said Ketevan Lalashvili, one of the students involved in the project, in a video produced by the school.
Student volunteers of all ages from the Pinewood American International School took some time away from their classrooms to learn more about conservation efforts during a beach cleanup in Thessaloniki, Greece.
As part of their learning unit on Earth’s natural environments, animal habitats, and sustainability, students volunteered their time to clean up trash and debris from a local beach.
More than one year since the departure of the DARWIN200 voyage, which is retracing Charles Darwin’s most famous sea voyage from the UK to Australia, the DARWIN200 organization has run a series of initiatives to inspire a new generation of explorers.
As well as educating the young naturalists and conservationists on board its ship, the organization took more than 30 students on an underwater adventure to explore the wonders of the Sydney Harbour marine environment.
At The British of School of Beijing, Sanlitun, students are learning about the impacts of global shipping on climate change and the sheer number of products that are shipped from China.
“Shipping is responsible for 3.3% of carbon emissions,” says one student.
The kids are trialing different designs of sails on model boats in a tank in their classroom, to see which is the most efficient and to discover how this could help reduce carbon emissions from real ships traveling across oceans.
The Clean Surf Project and Amanzimtoti Primary School joined together to clean up 1.8 kilometers (one mile) of coastline between Baggies Beach to Winklespruit Beach in South Africa.
Fourth-graders, teachers and the Clean Surf Project team collected 25 bags of trash, including fishing line, fishing knives, plastic bags, and microplastics.
Partnering with four schools across Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria, Greenhill Recycling are working to tackle the huge problem of waste across the country.
“They tell us it wasn’t always this way. Long ago the skies were blue, streams were crystal, the land alive. But somewhere along the way, they forgot to care, forgot to clean,” says one student in a short video made for Call to Earth Day.
Through the impressive efforts of 130 students, the schools have collected almost 170 kilograms (375 pounds) of trash from around their communities.
