Young people at a Carlisle school have been working on a new project to drive awareness of climate change.

Pupils at St John Henry Newman Catholic School have benefitted from a partnership between Adobe and Sky, which challenged them to create and submit a 90 second news report on climate change.

The students were able to use Sky News footage and Adobe editing tools to create their pieces whilst working from home during the last coronavirus lockdown.

The school's head of English, Louise Tickell, was pleased with the efforts of all pupils - but singled out year 9 student Joel McCormick for praise.

She said: "We did it during lockdown so it was a hard project to manage. It was led by me and the head of IT - Heather Herring - with our year nine pupils.

"Joel is a really bright spark and he just ran with it. It's excellent. I was in tears when he did it, I phoned his Mum to say how proud I was!

"I was really really proud of all of them. It was just something to try and brighten their days up.

"We were talking about the Carlisle floods, and when we were doing it Rickerby Park actually flooded again! So it was quite relevant to them."

Of course, climate change is at the forefront of many young people's minds - and the pupils at St John Henry Newman are no different.

Louise continued: "A lot of them are really into into climate change and activists like Greta Thunberg.

"The software was really good, but it would've been so much easier if we were in school!

"A lot of the pupils were using different platforms and we had to do it over Microsoft Teams.

"It took a lot longer than we expected, but the ones that engaged with it really enjoyed it. It was something different."

The project was part of a digital storytellers challenge from Adobe and Sky called The Edit. Young people got to learn about the whole production process and got tips from Sky Experts, all the while developing key media literacy skills.

The students are now in with the chance to have their report featured on Sky News, giving them a voice in the climate change debate.

The challenge links directly into Sky’s #GoZero initiative to achieve Net Carbon Zero by 2030 and Adobe’s own sustainability policy, and hopes to "empower young people to build the skills and confidence to amplify their voices to make a change."