UAE pupils run a hydroponic farm

STORY: These pupils are maintaining a hydroponic farm in their school’s cafeteria

(Raphael / Pupil, Dubai’s Royal Grammar School Guildford)

"Me and Sasha really care about the environment, in our school we are two of the eco-ambassadors and it’s really important for me, because sometimes people say; oh it's just the eco, but it's actually our planet, not even our planet, but the planet that we live on, therefore for me it's super important to keep it nice and clean, it is almost like your house, you got to keep your house clean, you have got to clean your house, so you should do the same for the planet."

(Sasha / Pupil, Dubai’s Royal Grammar School Guildford)

''It was really interesting for me to see how the plants grow in the water, because that's a more sustainable way and that will be more nice for the environment, because here in the UAE we do not have much soil and it's kind of warm to plant, so we have many hydroponic farms to grow our own lettuce."

(Clare Turnbull / Principal, Dubai’s Royal Grammar School Guildford)

"It came from the children, asking whether this was something that they could do, and they looked obviously at

the science of it, we researched a number of different companies - which one was actually going to give the proper results, it's in our canteen, our catering companies now use it for all our herbs and for as much for our salads as we can. That is going to develop over time."

As part of the school’s eco-week, pupils also designed these sustainable dresses

(Sophia, Pupil, Dubai’s Royal Grammar School Guildford)

"(Caring for the environment) It's super important, especially the leaves, that's why one of our main things is flowers and we are going to add leaves. So our dresses can look like they are part of the environment."