St Paul’s College, Kempsey, shines at Green Innovation Awards

A group of ambitious Year 10 students from St Paul’s College, Kempsey, were awarded first place in the 2022 Green Innovation Awards for Secondary Schools.

Congratulations to St Paul’s College, Kempsey, for coming first in the 2022 Green Innovation Awards for secondary schools.

The Green Innovation Awards is a wonderful science and environmental competition available for primary and high schools from the Gold Coast to Port Macquarie. 

Year 10 Geography students demonstrated their innovative ideas in waste management, water management, building and packaging materials, agriculture, biofuels and renewable energy. 

Their creative project ‘Bottles and Baskets’ encourages students to decrease the number of 10c refundable bottles entering landfill by making the recycling process engaging, enjoyable and competitive by encouraging students to shoot their waste through a hoop into the recycling bin. 

‘These students nailed the brief of diverting potential recycling in a fun and innovative way. They researched the impact this project would have and engineered a simple and effective design. Our students should be proud of the effort and academic excellence they displayed in this extracurricular activity,’ said St Paul’s Geography Teacher, Tess Meehan. 

Students then travelled to Southern Cross University Lismore on the 9 November to give a 10-minute presentation followed by a Q&A with Environmental Scientists, Business Leaders and Traditional Elders. Students were judged on originality, degree of research, practicality, impact potential, student knowledge and presentation. 

St Paul’s excelled in this sphere, presenting their research and concept design as a parody of a morning breakfast show, entertaining judges whilst clearly defining the problem and solution. St Paul’s took the trophy home ahead of McAuley Catholic College, Grafton’s, recapturing wastewater project and Kingscliff High School’s floating house to mitigate flooding.  

The Green Innovation team from St Ambrose Catholic Primary School, Pottsville, also made it through to the finals and confidently presented their community's ‘Coffee Cup Recycling’ program.