Last September 26, the AJYELN Myanmar fellows, Stay Aquatic, organized a student competition and exhibition showcasing the artworks and terrariums depicting a plastic-free environment in Pathein, Myanmar. This is part of a week-long competition organized by Stay Aquatic team to ignite the students’ interests and passion toward environmental awareness in their school.
The competition featured the students’ creative talents and aspirations for a plastic-free environment. Fifty-eight students, divided into teams participated in the competition. They were asked to imagine how a plastic-free environment would look like and recreate this image in the terrariums.
As the proposed project is a month-long competition in September, the team began to inform the students in their school about the competition on September 4. The competition includes terrarium creation and artwork contest. Both of these activities foster environmental awareness and creativity among the students. For the terrarium creation, the students were asked to imagine their ideal environment without plastics and recreate a terrarium using eco-friendly materials. The artwork competition asked the students to imagine and draw a plastic-free environment. The students were asked to prepare the materials for the succeeding two weeks and plan their creative designs. On September 23, the final creations were held on display in a one-day exhibit inside the school. The winners were evaluated and announced two days later.
A total of 58 number of students participated in the contests. There is 30% participation rate from Grade 6 students, 62.5% from Grade 7 students, 40% from Grade 8, and 3% from Grade 9. This involvement reflects the passion and enthusiasm of our youth, underscoring a significant milestone in our environmental engagement.
Several winners featuring the most creative and unique terrariums were selected and received awards. The students who participated greatly enjoyed the activities and look forward to future environmental awareness activities of Stay Aquatic. The AJYELN fellows hope that their activities could inspire other students to be conscious and aware of environmental issues, and to also participate in the AJYELN next year.
These activities recognize the powerful capacity of yo
