EAD and Shell Abu Dhabi delivers environment awareness to hundreds of thousands of students

Abu Dhabi (WAM): The Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, EAD, and Shell Abu Dhabi, have renewed their partnership in a move that will continue to bring the Enviro-Spellathon to schools and students across the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The Enviro-Spellathon is an award-winning annual environmental education programme that targets students across Abu Dhabi schools in primary and intermediate levels, those aged between 4 and 13. The programme, which has been achieving success since its launch in 2000, is in collaboration with the Emirates Wildlife Society in cooperation with the World Wide Fund for Nature, EWS-WWF, and supported by the Abu Dhabi Education Council, ADEC. The Enviro-Spellathon programme aims to increase children’s environmental knowledge and to instil environment friendly behaviour from a young age. At the beginning of each academic year, EAD, in cooperation with schools’ coordinators, distributes a series of educational booklets to each school. The booklets contain educational information and activities concerning the local environment that are developed specifically for students in the emirate. At the end of the year, students are tested on the information provided in the booklet in Arabic and / or English. The sponsorship agreement was signed by Dr. Jaber Al Jabri, EAD's Deputy Secretary-General, and Andrew Vaughan, Chairman of Shell Abu Dhabi. Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, EAD Secretary-General, said, "The success of the Enviro-Spellathon programme was better than we expected, it has attracted nearly 1.4 million students across 92 percent of the schools in Abu Dhabi last year edition alone. EAD distributed over 150,000 awards and certificates to students and coordinators in 366 schools to recognise their efforts." "As we aim to engage and educate Abu Dhabi’s community, EAD, in cooperation with Zayed Higher Organisation for Humanitarian Care and Special Needs, published a set of Enviro-Spellathon booklets that will be available exclusively in Braille in Arabic for visually impaired students from Grades 1 to 6. Through producing Braille resources, we’re giving visually impaired students the opportunity to become more actively immersed in environmental education by providing them with a hands-on experience in acquiring knowledge," Al Mubarak added. – Emirates News Agency, WAM – http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates/1395269894202.html