Boddington Gold environmental staff brought the forest into the classroom for more than 400 students from schools in Boddington, Dwellingup and Wandering to celebrate the second annual World Environment Day (WED). Key topics for discussion on the day were climate change and biodiversity. Boddington's Environmental Manager Tom Muth and Deputy Project Director Mike Hubbard told students their generation had the ability to "really make the difference on climate change."
"It's important to give our students a message of hope," Muth said. "Climate change can seem pretty scary to a young person. They need to know there's something that each of them can do about it."
These sentiments were echoed by students who presented on the environmental and recycling programs at their schools. Dr Hugh Finn, from Murdoch University, asked students to think about how their environment might change if climate change continued.
"Being from an area that is part forest and part farmland, it's easy for students to understand how things like drought and forest fires affect the environment," he said. "From there, it's just a matter of getting them to see how their own actions can reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit."
