CATHERINE HALL, St James — Dave Scott, principal of the Howard Cooke Primary School in Catherine Hall, says his school intends to top the 2016/2017 staging of the LASCO Re-leaf Environmental Awareness Programme (REAP) for the second consecutive year.

The 2016/2017 programme was launched at the school last Friday.

John Rollins Success Primary School, also in St James, topped the 2014/2015 staging of the environmental competition.

Scott said Howard Cooke Primary displayed “good envy” of John Rollins Success Primary, noting that his students “learned and made improvements which were used to their advantage last year” [2015/2016]. He stressed that this time around, the students intend to “outdo themselves”.

“Good envy. Because the Bible says you should covet good gifts. So, we learned from them. They say a wise person learns from other experiences and that is what we did, and we build on those experiences. And the experiences that we had last year, we will be building on those experiences this year, because we intend to outdo ourselves this time around,” a confident Scott said.

In addition to taking the top prize, Howard Cooke Primary also won Best Poem and Best Essay and received 10 computers and two tablets for its efforts. The school also had the top teacher, who received a trip for two to New York City in the USA.

Now in its fifth year, the programme, which was conceptualised by Stephen Newland, seeks to increase environmental awareness in primary schools across Jamaica.

Students are judged in several areas including tree planting, best garden, and most plastic bottles collected.

Speaking at last Friday’s launch, Newland, the project director, encouraged students to do their best, and disclosed that winners in this year’s staging of the event will also get the opportunity to appear on television.

“So, make sure you do your best, make sure you play fair, make sure you work hard, make sure you don’t neglect your schoolwork, make sure you have the cleanest, nicest school, make sure you have the best environment club, make sure you get everybody recruited in the programme,” he urged the students.

LASCO REAP is supported by the Lasco Group of companies, which has committed over $30 million to the initiative. Since the start of the programme, some 12,500 trees have been planted, 1.5 million plastic bottles collected, and 150 school gardens started.

Last year, 90 primary, preparatory and all-age schools across the island participated in the programme, which saw some 710,000 plastic bottles collected.