Students from the La Unión School, winners of the 2023 Zinkers Awards, visit the Repsol Industrial Complex and the Roman Forum Museum

• The Zinkers Awards recognize the best initiatives in primary and secondary schools across all autonomous communities in the field of energy transition, climate change, or sustainability.

• The visit is part of the prize of the 2nd edition of the Repsol Foundation Zinkers Awards, worth up to €15,000, for the top winner in the secondary school category.

• The students along with their teachers took a tour of Repsol's visitor center in Cartagena, immersing themselves in the world of energy and the circular economy.

As part of their prize, year 9 and 10 students from the Nuestra Señora del Carmen de La Union school, top winners of the 2nd edition of the Zinkers Awards in the secondary school category, enjoyed a fun and educational activity related to energy and sustainability. 

Students from the winning class visited the Repsol Industrial Complex in Cartagena today. During the tour, the students learned about the project to build the first advanced biofuels plant in Spain, and how the company is transforming itself to be net zero by 2050. 

After the visit, the students went to the Molinete Archaeological Park where they enjoyed a complete guided tour of the Roman Forum Museum. A virtual reality experience where they were able to walk through the ancient Carthago Nova. The Roman ruins came to life and students were able to see what the historical buildings were like and what they were used for. 

During the visit, they were joined by teachers Gracia Sorroche, David Sáez, Rosario Giménez, and Ginés Caparros, who was in charge of developing the winning project, RETO 2030, last year with his students. The class developed a board game with the aim of creating an inter-school competition in which participants have to solve ingenious challenges and tests on SDGs, contamination, the environment, and renewable energies, playfully putting their knowledge to the test.

The school also received a prize of €15,000 to help towards developing innovative projects for the methodological transformation at their school. 

Zinkers Awards

The Zinkers Awards recognize the best primary and secondary school projects and initiatives on energy transition and sustainability carried out by students at schools across all the autonomous communities.

For the second year running, the students demonstrated everything they had learned about these topics on the Zinkers digital education platform, now a go-to resource for content on energy and climate change, sustainable development, and the 2030 Agenda. More than 3,100 schools throughout Spain are registered, 174 from the Murcia region, representing 24% of the total number of schools in the region.

To evaluate the projects received in the 2nd edition of the Zinkers Awards, a committee of experts in education, pedagogy, and sustainability looked at the documents and declarations made by the students. These projects have been the result of a shared reflection where we find commitments, lessons learned, and even future actions to contribute to a more sustainable planet with the idea of transcending the limits of the classroom in order to raise awareness among more people and generate a positive global impact.

Zinkers Program 

New this academic year is the new version of Zinkers Secondary, which, in addition to being at the forefront of technology, has new content and challenges related to climate change, sustainable mobility, circular economy, and the energy model.

This new 2023-2024 academic year also offers the educational programs Zinkers Primary and Zinkers Secondary, both now in Spanish, English, Catalan, Basque, Galician, and Valencian.

Zinkers is a digital education program promoted by the Repsol Foundation. It offers a way to address the challenges of the future through knowledge and academic skill to answer young people's questions and concerns, thus helping to improve our surroundings and protect our planet.

Zinkers provides content adapted to various educational levels for students from 6 to 16 years old that allows teachers to present key content adapted to school curriculum on energy, climate change, sustainable mobility, the circular economy, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Its contents have been designed together with experts in energy and education, such as Chema Lázaro and Javier Espinoza, both National Prize for Education winners, and Juan Núñez, an educator specialized in educational innovation. At present, over 3,100 schools are signed up to Zinkers, accounting for a total of 5,000 teachers and 100,000 students all across Spain.

The platform is free to use and is based on educational methods, making it extremely useful to teachers in the classroom.

Molinete Roman Forum Museum 

Since 2013, the Repsol Foundation has contributed to strengthening the Molinete Roman Forum museum project by implementing new archaeological research, preservation, restoration, and musealisation activities that have made it possible to recover the city's past and bring it to the present day.