WWF Wild Wisdom Quiz: Our Inspirational Day
We arrived at the station at 8:30, in a rush of bags and coats. Penny ran towards me, panting. She was late, but only a bit, and we made it onto the train with plenty of time to spare. Once we reached London, we were greeted by a spectacular view from Blackfriars Bridge. We could see the shard, the gherkin, London Bridge and Saint Paul’s Cathedral, its spires rising up into the sky. We got off the train and into the underground. I had trouble opening the ticket gates! They were so complicated!
The air suddenly seemed to freshen and people were bustling around. Gusts of pumped wind hit us in the face as we headed towards the escalators. The escalators were incredibly steep and the smooth metal along the sides, seemed to urge us to slide down them. Thankfully, we didn’t. The queue down the escalators was long, a person to each moving step, the left-hand side free for people who needed to rush down them. I had never been in an underground tunnel before, and to be honest, I didn’t like it.
Finally, we escaped the terrors of the underground and made our way onto the train to Woking. We hurried to the WWF centre, an impressive, swooping building; graceful and modern. Inside, we were greeted by the centre staff, and invited to explore the wooden pods full of nature information. There was a plush, life size tiger, that was unexpectedly big, bigger then I would have expected a tiger to be.
We were led to a small learning area where we received a short introduction. We were sat next to a very kind girl called Rowan with whom we soon struck up a conversation. However, we both soon realised that we would be against each other in the competition, as she belonged to a different school.
After the brief presentation and video, we were split into two groups for the tour of the Living Planet Centre. It was fascinating to see such an economical and environmentally-friendly arrangement of a building. First, we saw the front of the building with the learning pods, from here we, moved onto the relaxing room with the art and the robotic pandas. We saw original, impressive animal paintings from Andy Warhol. The pandas were very interesting because they moved and turned in the direction you faced. They were rather creepy, with large brown eyes and white splotched pelts. There were about fifty of them, all in a square box. We were told about their history; it was interesting to find out that they were all recycled donation boxes. After that we were taken to the back of the building, through the open-plan office space complete with detoxifying fig trees and the calming sound of birdsong, to the kitchen.
The kitchen was very interestingly designed, with separate bins for every type of waste imaginable and with zip taps: a switch for boiling water and one for filtered, cool water. Once we had finished our tour, we walked back through the office filled with the beautiful trill of bird song and paved with recycled plastic carpet, and back into the classroom.
We were set a workshop challenge, to design a campaign to raise climate awareness. We teamed up with Rowan for the activity and, after 20 minutes, we presented our campaign. It was targeted at all audiences and included facts and statistics to raise awareness of climate change. It was called ‘Your World Needs YOU!’ and I think it was quite effective.
Next it was lunch time. I took a sandwich from the grown-up section, though I wasn’t meant to. Me, Rowan and Penny sat together and chatted, but before we knew it, it was time for official photographs and then, the quizzes were upon us.
For the quiz, we stayed in the room that we did the campaigns in. All the teams had lined up to get a buzzer and a mascot, (we chose the lion of course – our Landmark Lion). Rowan’s team chose a dolphin, which was her favourite animal. We were in the second round so we watched from the lime green chairs at the back of the room. Whilst watching the teams compete, we discussed the answers quietly to test our knowledge. By the end of their difficult round, we came face to face with our round. Sadly, Rowan’s team had not gained enough points to get to the next round. Just like round one, we were up against 4 other teams to narrow the number down to just one v one. The questions came, thick and fast. Some of them we knew, some of them we guessed out of our combined knowledge. The other teams were tough, one of the teams was on a screen, live from Scotland.
The last question came and went. We sat silently, with bated breath, waiting for the quiz master’s final verdict. It was a win! I cried out in joy, knowing full well that we would have to compete against the winners of round one if we were to get to the international finals.
A few minutes later, we sat face to face with our opposition, a London school which named themselves Team Seal. Again, the questions came fast, our hearts pounded, our hands grew clammy. We were in the lead, but by how much? As the quiz master announced the final verdict, my heart stopped. Was it another victory, or were we in for a crushing defeat?
“TEAM LIONS” the quiz master cried, and I felt my knees go weak with relief and joy. We were clear winners with 22 points while the others only had twelve. I grinned. We had won the national finals!
The quiz master congratulated everyone on their achievements. Shortly after, we were whisked away to the relaxing area, where a speaker called most of the WWF staff over to congratulate everyone. I smiled and glanced to my left where a person dressed up as a panda stood. I won’t lie, I was slightly unnerved by this and dipped my head so the stare of the panda wouldn’t freak me. However, we walked on and were seated on the table and chairs. Prizes were given out to each team in turn. When we were called up, we were congratulated by Tanya Steel, the chief executive of WWF UK. Amazed and overjoyed we took our prizes, our sustainable wood trophy sitting proudly on the table. I had enjoyed every moment of this and it would be an experience to hold forever.
We said our goodbyes to Rowan and everyone left, everyone that is but us. We were led back to the classroom to be interviewed, with our black beeping devices in our pockets and our serious faces on. Usually I would have been nervous, but the joyous buzz was still there, the energy coursing through me. Mrs. Gibbs, however, was nervous, grinning anxiously. She had smiled all through our interviews, but when it finally came to her turn she wasn’t all that confident, it was our turn to smile at her!
We made our final goodbyes to the wonderful staff and stroked the plush tiger once more. We ambled out of the glass door and into the late afternoon fresh air. We smiled to ourselves. What an extraordinary day!
By Antonia and Penny Year 8
