Sept 2019

SodaStream Event

2 September: SodaStream Australia (through Fuel Communications Stephanie Banno) identified Sophia as the Generation Z youth participant on a panel to launch SodaStream’s Ocean of the Future campaign with the aim to bring awareness to the single-use plastics epidemic and drive a sense of urgency amongst Australians to act and change. The campaign included a world first Virtual Reality experience that highlighted the devastating effects of single-use plastic pollution in our oceans. The VR experience was set up at Sydney’s Circular Quay between 3rd and 7th September.

The other panellists included the CEO SodaStream Daniel Birnbaum, Chief Executive Clean Up Australia Terrie-Ann Johnson, Australian surfer Joel Parkinson and Elyse Knowles, an Australian model who won The Block (along with her boyfriend Josh Barker) in 2017. For the VR experience David Day from Lump Sculpture Studio (based in Mackay) built ‘Eddy’ the Turtle, a 242 kg large scale installation made from marine litter and debris.

The next morning Sophia and her school friends appeared on Channel 9 Today Show, live weather television crosses with Steve Jacobs interviewing Sophia.

School Strike for Climate

20 September: It was epic to see over 80,000 attend the Climate Strike rally in the Sydney Domain (and 300,000 participate across Australia).

High School Talk

25 September: Sophia was invited to speak at Queenwood Senior Campus @ Mosman to Years 10 & 11. The students embraced Sophia’s message of being plastic free and BYO. Queenwood helped Sophia in her quest to achieve over 10,000 handwritten signatures for her ‘Ban the Plastic Bag’ NSW Government petition with Dr Fiona Radford (History teacher) organising over 150 student signatures from the school.