It was top-tier re­search and a com­pelling pre­sen­ta­tion that saw Ma­yaro Sec­ondary School emerge as cham­pi­ons of the de­bate com­po­nent of the bpTT Schools’ En­vi­ron­men­tal Aware­ness Com­pe­ti­tion on Ju­ly 2. The prizes and tro­phies were pre­sent­ed to schools on Ju­ly 9.

In ex­is­tence since 2006, the com­pe­ti­tion is en­dorsed by the min­istry of ed­u­ca­tion and is ad­min­is­tered by Ma­yaro-based non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion, The Black Deer Foun­da­tion, and spon­sored since in­cep­tion by en­er­gy com­pa­ny bpTT.

The com­pe­ti­tion had added sig­nif­i­cance this year be­cause it came a few weeks af­ter the launch of bp’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty frame which out­lines how the com­pa­ny is pur­su­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty through three broad ar­eas: Get­ting to Net Ze­ro, Im­prov­ing Peo­ple’s Lives and Care for the Plan­et. Since its in­cep­tion, the com­pe­ti­tion has proven to be an ef­fec­tive way to give chil­dren a voice in the con­ver­sa­tion on the en­vi­ron­ment.

Giv­en the re­stric­tions due to the pan­dem­ic, the 2021 ver­sion of the com­pe­ti­tion was reimag­ined to make it vir­tu­al and there­fore ac­ces­si­ble to stu­dents study­ing at home. The fi­nals saw Ma­yaro Sec­ondary pit­ting their wits against a strong SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege.

Get­ting a score of 92.8, the Ma­yaro team edged out SWA­HA by a mere 1.6 points. Cowen Hamil­ton Sec­ondary (91.1) and Rio Claro West Sec­ondary (89.2) round­ed up the top four spots.

Matthew Pierre, com­mu­ni­ty li­ai­son co-or­di­na­tor, bpTT, laud­ed the de­bate com­pe­ti­tion: “The en­vi­ron­ment is the key fo­cus of this com­pe­ti­tion, which mesh­es well with our re­newed fo­cus on the cli­mate, in­clud­ing the aim to be net ze­ro by 2050. This fo­cus is com­bined with key aca­d­e­m­ic skills such as re­search, writ­ing, pre­sen­ta­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, while at the same time en­cour­ag­ing stu­dents to ex­er­cise their cre­ativ­i­ty and self-ex­pres­sion in a com­fort­able yet chal­leng­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

“Al­though catal­ysed by the pan­dem­ic, the use of vir­tu­al tech­nol­o­gy this year is a much green­er way to fa­cil­i­tate this com­pe­ti­tion. From the re­duc­tion in terms of ve­hi­cle emis­sions from the move­ment of stu­dents to in­creased ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, the cre­ative use of tech­nol­o­gy has en­hanced this al­ready sig­nif­i­cant pro­gramme.”

The de­bate com­pe­ti­tion does not fol­low the usu­al for­mat of ar­gu­ment and re­but­tal. In­stead, it gives stu­dents the space to present their ar­gu­ments util­is­ing oral and tech­nol­o­gy-based mech­a­nisms in­clud­ing on­line pre­sen­ta­tions.

This year the stu­dents ar­gued the top­ic, “Be it re­solved: There has been much talk about build­ing a dam in the Or­toire Riv­er when dams are built on rivers, it changes the ecosys­tem in many ways. Dams may im­pact, both pos­i­tive­ly and neg­a­tive­ly, the bio­di­ver­si­ty of ter­res­tri­al plant com­mu­ni­ties, fish and oth­er aquat­ic life, mam­mals and birds. Do you agree or dis­agree with this state­ment?”

The judges had a tough time sep­a­rat­ing the fi­nal­ists on cri­te­ria in­clud­ing top­ic de­vel­op­ment, dic­tion, oral and vi­su­al pre­sen­ta­tion and clar­i­ty of mes­sage.

Ed­u­ca­tor and de­bate judge Theophilus Nedd said: “I am proud to have been a judge since in­cep­tion and the high stan­dard of the fi­nals is re­flect­ed in the nar­row mar­gin sep­a­rat­ing the schools.

“It’s a priv­i­lege to see the ner­vous­ness and strug­gles at the start of the com­pe­ti­tion trans­form in­to con­fi­dence and skill in pre­sen­ta­tion. The stu­dents’ ea­ger­ness and en­thu­si­asm to ab­sorb knowl­edge and im­prove is a trib­ute to this com­pe­ti­tion. Ku­dos to bpTT and The Black Deer Foun­da­tion for their con­tin­ued sup­port of this bench­mark com­pe­ti­tion.”

Founder and pres­i­dent of The Black Deer Foun­da­tion Ar­volon Wil­son-Smith com­ment­ed: “The for­mat of this de­bat­ing com­pe­ti­tion was craft­ed to give schools the con­fi­dence to present their thoughts and ideas with­out in­hi­bi­tion. The vir­tu­al en­vi­ron­ment is a rev­o­lu­tion­ary mech­a­nism and the stu­dents re­spond­ed well and re­al­ly lift­ed the qual­i­ty of their pre­sen­ta­tions. With this ex­pand­ed ca­pac­i­ty and reach, we look for­ward to even greater par­tic­i­pa­tion go­ing for­ward.”

The com­pe­ti­tion cur­rent­ly en­gages stu­dents from the north and south east­ern ed­u­ca­tion dis­tricts, but with the ad­vent of the new on­line tech­nol­o­gy plat­form, there are plans for a na­tion­al reach in fu­ture. In ad­di­tion to the de­bat­ing com­po­nent which is sec­ondary school fo­cused, stu­dents be­tween the ages of sev­en and 18 par­tic­i­pate in the es­say writ­ing, as well as the art/car­toon cat­e­gories of this en­vi­ron­men­tal com­pe­ti­tion.

Nazia Rahim, cap­tain of the Ma­yaro Sec­ondary team, was elat­ed with their vic­to­ry: “This de­bate com­pe­ti­tion is a trans­for­ma­tive ex­pe­ri­ence and it changes the way we look and think about the en­vi­ron­ment and our place in it. In ad­di­tion, it re­al­ly sharp­ens a lot of skills that ben­e­fit us aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly from re­search to pub­lic speak­ing. It was a tough fight and the qual­i­ty of the oth­er schools re­al­ly chal­lenge us to be our best and it made win­ning even more re­ward­ing. I ap­pre­ci­ate this op­por­tu­ni­ty and head­ing in­to ex­ams, I’m even more con­fi­dent of suc­cess.”