The Environment Protection and Development Authority in Ras Al Khaimah celebrated the winners of the Student Environmental Protection Teams Award in its fifth session for the year 2021-2022, in the presence of a representative of the Ministry of Education, Her Excellency Dr. Amna Al Dahak Al Shamsi, Assistant Undersecretary for the Care and Capacity Building Sector, a number of directors of local authorities in the emirate and the authority’s partners.
The authority launched the award in 2017 in partnership with the Ministry of Education, in order to enhance the vision of the UAE National Agenda 2021 in achieving sustainable development, and it is one of the initiatives presented by the authority.

The award achieves the development vision of the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah 2030 and its strategic directions, and the protection of the environment and the sustainability of natural resources receive all support from His Highness Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, under the supervision and follow-up of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Crown Prince of Ras Al Khaimah and Chairman of the Executive Council. Dr. Saif Muhammad Al Ghais, Director General of the Environmental Protection and Development Authority, said that the schools participating in the fifth cycle of the award amounted to 23 schools from inside and outside the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, and the number of students participating in the student environmental protection teams so far has reached more than 2,500 students. The award: Planting more than 8,600 local trees through school teams. The award won first place in the category of distinguished government project in partnership with the Ministry of Education within the former Government Excellence Award categories.

He added that the goal of the Student Environmental Protection Teams Award is to prepare a generation that contributes to protecting the environment and maintaining its sustainability and enhancing the innovative tendency of student environment teams in solving environmental problems and cooperating with schools in highlighting special contributions to preserving the environment and striving for excellence and innovation. A new approach to environmental awareness through the educational approach that depends on the transfer of environmental awareness to schools and from there to various segments of the local community by encouraging them to raise the level of environmental awareness by the authority and forming awareness monitoring teams in each school in order to enhance the concept of environmental protection and the sustainability of its resources.

Al Munai School of Secondary Education for Girls from the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah won the first place, followed by Al Hudaiba School for Secondary Education in Ras Al Khaimah in the second place, then in the third place the Village School of the first cycle of the Emirate of Fujairah. Based on the award criteria, it was the best in applying the results and impact criterion, and Al Hudayba School won the best school in applying the environmental awareness and education criterion.



The High School of Applied Technology in Ras Al Khaimah won the best school in applying the criterion of enhancing the green area. As for the criterion of energy consumption, the village school got the best school for implementing this criterion, and Abdullah Al Salem School, the second cycle of the Emirate of Sharjah, got the best school in applying the criterion of creativity and innovation.



The Spirit of the Union School, cycle two and three in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, won the best school in applying the criterion of continuous learning and development, and finally, the Quality School, cycle three for boys in Ras Al Khaimah, got the best school in applying the criterion of media coverage.

Al-Ghais stressed that the evaluation process for the participating schools was based on many evaluation criteria, such as the extent of planning and implementation, clarity of the mechanism, objectives and operations of the programs carried out by the team, initiatives and environmental activities. During the number and quality of environmental initiatives, campaigns and activities that have been implemented, the number of internal environmental competitions and the number of environmental events that have been celebrated.

The criterion for enhancing the green area comes to measure the area of ​​the green area in the school and the number of local trees such as Ghaf, Sidr, Samar and others planted inside and outside the school and to ensure their care and care. Environmental innovation is the creativity, realism and scalability of innovative ideas, projects and applications in the field of environmental work. And because the process of continuous learning and development is important in the evaluation process, the preparation and qualification of the team, the stakeholders and those in charge of it, the number of scientific and practical workshops and the standard comparisons carried out by the team were taken into consideration. Therefore, the distinguished schools are honored in the application of each of the standards.

With regard to individual participation, the authority received more than 60 individual participation in its four categories, the first of which is the creation of an environmental cartoon character that promotes the environment and sustainable development, and the student Marwa Rashid from Al-Munai School won first place in the short story category, which represents writing a short story whose events are derived from reality in the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah The different age levels were also taken into account to evaluate the participants in this category, which was won by the student Maryam Ahmed Saif from Al-Munai School. The fourth category is to participate in a short environmental awareness film about healthy food or agriculture, and it was for the student Maryam Younis Abdul Rahman Al-Feel from the Secondary School of Applied Technology in the Emirate of Ajman.