Staff and students at Lord Howe Island Central School have a lifestyle many on mainland NSW dream about.

“Students on Lord Howe Island have grown up with such a natural sense of conservation because they spend their days swimming with turtles, snorkelling at the world’s most southern coral reefs and climbing mountains full of endemic species,” Principal Gabbi Ellsmore said.

It also means they live and breathe the wicked problem for the 2026 Game Changer Challenge; ‘Creating fairer and more connected communities, where people, planet and place thrive together’.

As students spend afternoons exploring the island’s headlands and coastal forests, they see the devastating impact of single use plastics and microplastics on shearwaters, also known as mutton birds, which are often found with stomachs full of pieces of plastic that the birds have mistaken for food.

Their investigation made an equally big impact on judges and it ensured the Lord Howe Legends were one of 16 primary school teams that will make their way to Parramatta for the Game Changer Challenge grand final in November.

“I’m so excited for this opportunity because I want to show other schools in Australia and NSW that even on a small island we can do big things,” Year 5 student Evie said.

“The mutton bird is the most impacted sea bird really, in terms of plastic pollution, and it really needs some help right now.”

Fellow first time grand finalists, the Collarenebri Collective from Collarenebri Central School quickly learned through its research that the Barwon River is important to the entire community but often becomes an overgrown dumping ground and a breeding site for carp.

Principal Fiona Donnelly said the high school students, living and learning on Gamilaroi Country in northwestern NSW, showed impressive collaboration as they uncovered the reasons behind the disconnect between locals’ love for the Barwon, while also seeming to show little care for it.

“The students have developed their creative problem-solving skills as they worked through a range of solutions to the problem of pollution in the river,” Mrs Donnelly said.

“We are so proud of them making it to the Grand Final, the whole school community will be cheering them on.”

Six high school teams have qualified for the Secondary School category and also will be invited to send an additional student to participate in the Game Changer Challenge Student Reporter program, which provides them with access to media mentors and podcast production, while seeking to amplify student voice across the department.

This year, the Game Changer Challenge received submissions from 542 teams, which used design thinking and selected an area of inquiry to work through the wicked problem of ‘Creating fairer and more connected communities, where people, planet and place thrive together.’

NSW Department of Education Secretary, Murat Dizdar, said the Game Changer Challenge showed what was possible when students were given the opportunity to tackle real-world problems and think beyond the classroom.

“Our Game Changer Challenge teams are a wonderful example of public schools being at the heart of their communities – taking on challenges that are local, global and, in the case of Macarthur Girls High School’s Space Junkies, potentially intergalactic,” Mr Dizdar said.

“From cleaning up our Earth’s orbit to tackling challenges in their own communities, these students are showing us that there is no limit to what young people can achieve when we give them the opportunity to think creatively and solve problems that matter.

“As an educator, I’m incredibly proud to see young people who are curious, collaborative and prepared to have their thinking challenged – and to start again when new information changes their perspective.

“That is the power of the Game Changer Challenge. It is learning by doing, and it gives our students the confidence and capability to take on the complex problems of today and tomorrow.”

The grand finalists will now move onto the ‘validate and iterate’ process, which has been introduced to encourage students to continue developing their concept between qualifying and the Grand Final in Parramatta on November 10, 11 and 12.