County Council and pupils look to Make an Impact

Worcestershire County Council's County Museum will be working with a group of pupils from Christopher Whitehead Language College in Worcester to present their modern day campaign, Saving Wildlife.

On Tuesday, March 16, schoolchildren from Christopher Whitehead, led by Sue Pope from the County Museum, will be presenting their campaign to an audience in the Council Chamber at County Hall. The audience will then be given the chance to vote on what the pupils go on to do as a result of listening to the debate.

The pupils have put together their Saving Wildlife campaign as part of the national Museums, Libraries and Archives Council initiative, Campaign! Make an Impact project, which uses history to inspire active citizenship. It has been created following recent visits to the County Council's Record Office to view original Civil War documents and research debates from the dissenting groups of that period including the Levellers, Quakers and Ranters.

The 12 students will be presenting the final results of their project on Tuesday through a live debate in the Council Chamber in front of each other and invited guests. They will be using short films, logos, slogans and adverts to present and support their message, which will also be broadcast live to enable their fellow pupils to also tune in.

Sue Pope, County Museum's Education and Outreach Officer, said: "This project has inspired a really innovative approach to using history to promote active citizenship amongst young people. Through this project we have encouraged them to voice their opinions on the issues that are important to them and demonstrate how important their voice is too."

Neil Morris, Headteacher, Christopher Whitehead Language College, said: "The students are some of our gifted and talented history students from year 8 who feel passionately about the environment. They are eloquent speakers and after studying English Civil War protest in history with their teachers, Miss Monger and head of faculty, Mr Farmer, they chose this as their topic for a contemporary protest and debate."