Earlier this year the Department of Environment asked primary and high school students to submit entries for a poster competition championing the cause of ozone layer protection. The posters were designed around the theme: "protect the ozone layer, save life on earth." Fifty students submitted entries but only four were awarded prizes at a short ceremony this morning. We start with 13-year-old St. Catherine's Academy student Shanel Pelayo who placed first. She missed this morning's ceremony but came to our studios this afternoon to tell us about her winning entry. We also spoke to Blanca Zabaneh from St. Joseph School who placed second and Annie Li from Bernice York who placed third.
Shanel Pelayo, First Place
"My idea was the umbrella was depicting the ozone layer and they had sides. One side was depicting the good and the other side was depicting the bad. If you pollute it and stuff like that, you go on the bad side and if you did what was right and don't pollute, you go on the good side."
Blanca Zabaneh, Second Place
"My poster is showing about the ozone and showing that we have the earth in our hands and we have to try protect it from the dangerous UV rays."
Annie Li, Third Place
"It took quite some time to think about the background and everything but then when I was in class one day I figured out to do something with Belize in it since Belize is such an important part of my life and then I came up with using the flag as the design and I would like to thank very much my teacher and my school and my classmates for supporting me and my parents."
Alexandria Espinosa from St. Joseph Primary School tied with Annie Li for third place. Though none of their students won, Yo Creek Compassion Primary School was also awarded a computer for submitting the most entries.
