Forgandenny Primary School win Upstream Battle® art competition

Forgandenny Primary School have won the top prize in our Upstream Battle® art competition.

Twenty-seven entries were submitted for the competition, which encouraged young people across Tayside to learn about the pathway of marine litter from source to sea.

The competition is part of our Upstream Battle® campaign, which aims to change littering behaviour and prevent litter from along Scotland’s rivers and waterways ending up in the sea.

Pupils were asked to explore how litter in their community could end up as marine litter in the sea and represent their thoughts through an artistic medium, such as sculpture, painting, photography, video or poetry.

Forgandenny Primary School won first place with the project Free the sea from you and me, a stop motion animation encouraging everyone to bin their litter and follows a whole school litter pick where different types of litter were collected, recorded and compared to previous years.

Second place went to Kirkmichael Primary School for the project Klean Kirky! which included a video and a model of the River Ardle with nearby landmarks. A poem was written and a pledge designed for pupils to take. Pupils completed a litter pick and survey in the school grounds before doing an Upstream Battle® litter survey along the river bank.

Abernyte Primary School won third prize with Stop Marine Litter, a colourful whale sculpture made from paper mache. Pupils at Abernyte spent an afternoon litter picking in the school, investigated where the school is in relation to the sea and, after questioning how litter travels to the sea from the school, agreed that it is likely that the litter gets blown into nearby streams and drains and then travels down to the River Tay, drawing a map of the possible route litter could take to reach the sea.

Entries were judged by a panel of three: Barry Fisher, our Chief Executive; Sandy Green, Managing Director of Scrap Antics; and artist Gail McGregor.

The entries were judged on criteria including, strength of source to sea message, creativity/originality in artistic response, alignment with design brief and detail of investigation carried out.

Top prize is an in-person workshop with Scrap Antics, second prize is a £60 voucher for the ScrapStore in Dundee and third prize is Earth Paints.

Barry Fisher, our Chief Executive, said: “We were so impressed with the creativity of all the entries this year, with so many fantastic projects to enjoy.

“Young people clearly feel strongly about the issue of marine litter and the importance of protecting our waterways, and it’s exceptionally inspiring for Keep Scotland Beautiful to see this enthusiasm from our young people.

“Scotland has a litter emergency, and our rivers, waterways and seas are being impacted. I’d like to thank every single pupil who got involved for their effort, enthusiasm and support for Upstream Battle.”

Visit Upstream Battle | Keep Scotland Beautiful to learn more about Upstream Battle®.