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Year 8 geographers have been getting creative as they grapple with the possible future effects of unchecked climate change.

The boys spent the first half of this term studying the topic, with many entering a QE competition challenging them to compose a poem or short story describing the world in the year 2100, when the world has warmed by 2 degrees.

The Geography department teamed up with Head of English Robert Hyland to judge the entries. Keon Robert has now been announced as the winner in the short story category, while Shreyas Chandrasekar was adjudged to have submitted the best poem.

Emily Parry, Head of Geography, said: ‘I was very impressed with the standard of submissions and the boys’ awareness of the potential impacts of climate change. The creative poems and stories clearly highlight the threat that climate change poses for all of us.”

The competition results were announced as the British Government unveiled its plan for a “green industrial revolution”, bringing forward a ban on petrol and diesel cars and announcing other measures, such as an expansion of offshore wind, hydrogen and nuclear power generation.

In his story, entitled Our Planet is on Fire, Keon imagined a dystopian future in a polluted city of 3 billion souls, its population swelled by immigrants from other countries seeking refuge from the effects of climate change.

There is no respite from the gloom: the story ends with the protagonist attending a meeting at his factory which, as he suspected, is to be closed down, as the authorities  try desperately – “too little, too late” – to deal with the crisis.

He reflects ruefully on the missed opportunities to deal with climate change that had brought the world to this point: “We knew it was going to happen, but we never did anything about it. In the end, it strikes us when we least expect it.”

Most of Shreyas’s poem is equally bleak – “none of us will survive” – and he adds anger into the mix:

Throw your wrath, your fury, your ire
To those who destroyed our Earth

But his work, entitled Every Little Helped, ends with just a hint of optimism, the voice from the future warning us that all may not yet be lost:

It’s time to act, to change, to make a better choice,
Or there will be no Earth left at all.

Riyan Siyani, who took second place in the poetry category, imagines how his grandchildren’s generation might look back on the present day:

It is the year 2100,
Nothing is the same, all hope has been squandered
We look back to the year of 2020
And remember how food was aplenty.

The runner-up in the short story category was Adam Liang, who draws out the effects of climate change on nature and on different groups in society, including the young – “babies are crying constantly…children complaining that it’s too hot” – and the old – “the first to go…they wasted and wilted away, just like dead flowers in the wind”.

• Main image above by Tumisu from Pixabay

The twin importance of message and method in fighting climate change was brought to the fore in the two winning entries in the Geography department’s Earth Day competitions.

The competitions were held to mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection.

With this year’s Earth Day theme being Climate Action, the winner of the writing competition emphasised the importance of using the right people to convey environmental messages, while the victor in the parallel photography competition emphasised the positive impact that even small steps could have.

Head of Geography Emily Parry said: “Well done to all of the boys who entered the competitions. It was impressive to see the boys engage with the enormous challenge of climate change and heartening to see their appreciation of the wonder of our planet and passion for it to be protected.”

The first task was to write in 500 words or less an answer in response to the question: How can we save our planet from climate change? The second was for boys to submit a photograph they had taken illustrating the impact, for good or ill, of humans on ecosystems, accompanied by a 100-word explanation.

Ananth Iyer, of Year 8, took the prize for the photography competition with his striking image of a bird feeder in his back garden. He explained his choice of subject: “It celebrates the positive impact that humans can have on our environment. It can provide food for birds and all sorts of other animals when they are finding it tough. Small things like these can have a huge impact.”

Congratulating Ananth, Miss Parry said: “We appreciated the simplicity of Ananth’s photograph and how it showed that it is possible for anyone to take a small action which can have a positive impact upon ecosystems.”

First prize for the writing competition went to Rahul Doshi, of Year 10, who submitted an argument that insufficient numbers of people are aware of the threat of climate change.

“Rahul creatively answered the question How can we save our planet from climate change? by recognising that it is first necessary for everyone to accept that climate change is actually a threat! He draws attention to the importance of having messengers, such as David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg, to effectively communicate climate science to people of all ages and backgrounds,” said Miss Parry.

Rahul proposed the use of respected messengers to increase recognition. He wrote: “With over 46% of UK citizens believing that the threat is overstated and 10% completely denying that humans are to blame for climate change, it is clear that not enough people currently are aware of the threat climate change poses to our planet. There needs to be a big push to get messengers – people who we all relate to – to get this message across. If we do not, this planet faces a grave future.”

The competitions were launched on Earth Day on 22 April through eQE and were accompanied by tips and links to websites with suggestions for background reading material. These ranged from National Geographic’s suggestions for lightening our ecological load to an Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) article about how to build a bug house.

Year 12 geographers on a field trip to Suffolk and Essex tested out in real life the theories they had learned in the classroom – while staying in a field centre that forms one of the most famous scenes in world art.

Despite freezing temperatures outside, the boys completed their fieldwork successfully during their stay at the historic Flatford Mill Studies Centre (FSC) at East Bergholt, Suffolk, on the River Stour, last month.

A cottage in the grounds of the mill features in John Constable’s iconic painting, The Hay Wain, which shows a farm cart crossing the river.

Deputy Head Anne Macdonald said: “I am really proud of them; they behaved impeccably and were a credit to the School. They were complimented on their positive attitudes, excellent work ethic and manners by the FSC staff and teachers from other visiting schools.”

The 14-strong group stayed in the centre’s Valley Farm, a 600-year-old Grade I-listed building.

An outing to the coastal town of Walton-on-the-Naze across the river in Essex enabled the boys to look at the different social, economic and environmental thinking behind the variety of coastal management approaches.

They also saw how coastal management affects the processes and landforms, as well as the impact of coastal erosion and mass movement on a rapidly retreating coastline.

“It was a hugely successful trip to a beautiful stretch of coastline,” added Mrs Macdonald.

“This is a very hard-working group of students who not only enjoyed the fieldwork day, but particularly the hunt for fossilised shark teeth on the beaches!”

The fieldwork completed by the boys is examined as part of the AS examination.

They were also able to acquire techniques and skills to support the completion of independent fieldwork for the non-examined assessment that they will take in Year 13.

Several fieldwork techniques were used in different exercises – cost-benefit analysis, an environmental impact assessment, beach profiles, and infiltration rate and sediment studies. Graphical, cartographic and statistical tests that had been covered in the classroom were also revised.

Two QE boys are among the prizewinners in a national competition aimed at finding better designs for electric vehicle charging points.

Year 8’s Tharsan Nimalan won a prize in the seven–14 category, while Ashwin Sridhar, of Year 10, achieved success in the 14-–19 age group in the Eco-Innovators Competition run by the Government’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV).

Their success came as the Government announced that a ban on selling new petrol, diesel or hybrid cars in the UK would be brought forward from 2040 to 2035 at the latest. Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the announcement as the country plans to host the annual United Nations climate change summit, COP 26, which is being held in Glasgow in the autumn.

The brief for the competition was to create a design for on-street electric vehicle (EV) charging points that were innovative, iconic and beautiful. At QE, entries were handled jointly by the Geography and Technology departments.

Geography teacher Nilisha Shah said: “I congratulate Tharsan and Ashwin on their success. As the Government’s announcement shows, universal use of electric vehicles is an idea whose time has clearly come, yet there is still much work to be done in making our cities ready. Innovative, creative thinking such as Tharsan’s and Ashwin’s is likely to prove essential if the UK is to get the infrastructure right.”

Tharsan went through a number of design ideas and drafts before settling on his submitted design, which was based upon a large tree. The trunk had a spiral staircase which users could walk up to reach lounge-style leisure facilities – perhaps a restaurant – at the top of the “tree”.

The intention behind this, he explained, was to help EV users pass the time whilst their vehicle charged and even make the charging point a desirable destination – thus overcoming the perceived drawback of electric vehicles that users would have nothing to do while re-charging. Tharsan wanted, in fact to make non-electric car users “jealous of the experience they could be having”.

His design involved the use of lightweight, more sustainable and recyclable metals and other materials, with green planting on the roof. Vehicles would be parked around the base for charging, with cables pulled down from the trunk and plugged in wherever the connection point is on a vehicle.

Ashwin designed a charging station with a “contemporary aesthetic” and a “self-maintaining garden to absorb pollution”. He envisaged a vertical garden some 3 metres high which would collect rainwater and self-irrigate, featuring green plants and mosses that are good at capturing carbon.

Ashwin envisaged targeting high-pollution areas in terms of locations for his charging station, which would also be designed to provide easy access.

Even before learning about the competition, Ashwin had already been thinking about charging point designs, having seen existing ones around London and thought that they could be made better. “They should be more than charging points,” he said, pointing out that ones created according to his designs would not only help “green” the urban landscape, but could usefully act as a source of information, for tourists, for example. Since so many charging points were going to be needed, it was important to get more functionality out of the space.

Sixty-six Year 11 GCSE geographers enjoyed the chance to get their hands dirty on a field trip to Epping Forest.

During the Physical Geography trip, the boys were tasked with investigating the question How do river characteristics change with distance downstream along Loughton Brook?

The exercise involved going to three sites and measuring the brook’s width, depth, velocity, sediment size and sediment roundness at each.

Head of Geography Emily Parry said: “This was a successful trip and we were very lucky to have dry weather.

“It fulfilled the second element of the AQA examination board’s GCSE requirement that fieldwork is carried out to explore both Human and Physical Geography: the Human Geography field trip was a visit in June to the Olympic Park in Stratford.”

The field trip was spread over two days, with half of the cohort going each day, accompanied by four teachers.

The fieldwork was led by tutors from the Field Studies Council’s Epping Forest base. It is situated in the heart of the forest, an area of 2,400 hectares stretching from Manor Park in East London to just north of Epping in Essex.

Two-thirds of the forest has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The purpose-built centre there has six classrooms and is only a few minutes from the M25 and Loughton Tube Station.

From enjoying spectacular views near the summit of Mount Etna to learning how to make their own pizzas, QE’s younger pupils sampled Sicily’s best on a Geography tour.

Forty-one boys from Years 7, 8 and 9 took part in the five-day trip led by Geography teacher Helen Davies, who was accompanied by four other members of staff.

After the first evening spent ten-pin bowling, the first full day brought a coach trip to Mount Etna, Europe’s highest active volcano. The guide-led tour included travel, first in a cable car and then in jeeps, to reach a height of 2,900m, where the strong winds brought heavy windchill that was felt even through multiple layers of clothing.

Nivain Goonasekera, of Year 9, said: “Whilst the whole trip was incredible, my favourite part was probably reaching the summit of Mount Etna: we were all taken aback by the photogenic, breath-taking views, which totally compensated for it being -5C!”

After returning to lower altitudes and warmer temperatures, they visited the nearby Alcantara Gorge – a basalt formation created by Mount Etna’s volcanic activity.

On the following day, after getting up at 5:30am, the boys set off for a full-day visit to the Aeolian Islands, a volcanic archipelago visible from Sicily.

A short boat ride took them from Milazzo to Lipari, the largest of the islands, which boasts deep caverns, steep cliffs and attractive views. Then, on the island of Vulcano, the group sampled the mud baths, where a pool of brackish water and mud clay is continuously agitated by sulphurous bubbles, the olfactory effects of which are known to linger, as Nikhil Mark, of Year 7, discovered: “It was a bit ‘icky’, but the mud was warm. We were all stinking like rotten eggs when we got back.”

On day four, the group visited the Straits of Messina and Tindari Lakes, where they saw the linguetta di sabbia, a sandbank stretching 1.5km into the Tyrrhenian Sea. “It is an extraordinary sight, for which the correct geographical term is a ‘spit’,” said Miss Davies.

One evening activity popular with the boys was the visit to a restaurant, the Café Sikelia. There they not only learned about the history of the pizza and the different types available, but also had the chance to try their hand at making one themselves, before tucking into a pizza dinner.

On the final day, they headed for the amphitheatre at Taormina, which was built by the Greeks in the third century BC and expanded by the Romans. Robert Hyland, Head of English, was able to give the boys plenty of information about the history of the amphitheatre.