By Mrs McPhail (Geography Teacher)

In recent years the celebration of Antarctica Day (1st December) kick-starts the Antarctica Flags Project. The project aims to link schools with scientists and support personnel who carry the flags, designed by students, to Antarctica to ‘fly’ on the continent. 

This year we were delighted to receive entries from students in Year 8 and 9 and from those entries two flags were created. One was a collage of flags created by Sophie (Year 9), Amrita (Year 9), Millie (Year 8) and Daisy and Eleanor (Year 8) and Noori's (Year 9) flag we felt was worthy enough to be on its own. 

The project is run by the UK Polar Network and tries to raise awareness of this vast continent. This covers topics such as governance and the Antarctic Treaty as well as learning about penguins and krill and the pressures that are now felt by this vast wilderness. The designs this year featured some very creative ideas. 

This week we were delighted to learn that our flags have reached the British Antarctic Survey research station on Bird Island, South Georgia which sits in the Southern Atlantic Ocean.

It is not every day that work from BGS students reaches Bird Island but that is exactly what happened. Emma Edwards, a Station Leader on Bird Island who works for the British Antarctic Survey, received our entries and photographed them with the striking backdrops you can see in the images. Albatross and Giant petrel set against the landscape provided a wonderful setting for the flags.

Not only has it been a great privilege for the students to have their work showcased in this way, but it has been lovely to show the images to all our students in Geography lessons and show them what can be achieved by taking the time to create something different within the co-curricular program.

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