Young winners of Blue Peter’s Earthshot prize met Prince William at Windsor Castle on Thursday.

The heir to the throne invited the five winners to a special reception inside Windsor Castle, where each of them presented their winning idea to The Prince of Wales, who then awarded them with their certificates.

In September, the royal teamed up with Blue Peter to give budding young environmentalists a chance to enter a competition, aimed at inspiring them to focus on solutions for climate change.

The Blue Peter Earthshot Competition, which invited children aged 5 – 15 to come up with an idea to help save the planet and be recognised by the prince’s prestigious Earthshot Prize.

The five winners spoke to Prince William and had the opportunity to ask the royal questions about the environment.

They also joined The Prince for a Blue Peter ‘Here’s One I Made Earlier’ moment creating Earthshot themed eco-friendly bird feeders together.

The winners include Marni, aged eight, from London, who came up with an idea for family forests where a tree is planted for every person in the UK.

Mia, also eight, from North Yorkshire, wants to stop factory pollution and global warming with an idea to help clean polluted water using algae ponds.

Meanwhile Llewyn, aged nine, from Glasgow, had an idea to invent compostable glasses which allow people to see how much carbon dioxide is in the air and encourage them to make steps to prevent pollution.

Elsewhere Ruby, aged 10, from Devon, entered with an idea to reduce waste with solar powered vans to give people access to refill services.

Annie, aged 12, from Milton Keynes, had an idea to help save coral reefs by supplying them with nutrients and calcium with ‘ocean bursts’, an idea which came from bath bombs.

The Earthshot Prize is a global environmental prize and platform, founded by Prince William in 2020, designed to discover, accelerate and scale ground-breaking solutions to repair and regenerate the planet.

The winners also presented their ideas at Speaker’s House in the House of Commons in front of members of a cross-party Environmental Committee.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, said: ‘I was absolutely thrilled to meet the Blue Peter Earthshot competition winners and to hear their imaginative and innovative ideas to help protect the planet.

‘The thought that had gone into their ideas, and the enthusiasm with which they discussed them with us was genuinely exciting.’

Blue Peter received almost 2000 entries from all over the UK with children submitting their ideas and inventions to help protect and restore our planet in the future.

Children were invited to submit an original idea aimed at achieving one of the five ‘Earthshots,’ the aspirational environmental goals established by The Earthshot Prize: Fix our Climate, Protect and Restore Nature, Clean our Air, Revive our Oceans and Build a Waste-Free World.

It comes after William sent out a message to budding young environmentalists in September last year.

As he spoke to budding environmentalists in a video, the father-of-three looked classic in a blue ensemble with a navy blazer and pale coloured open shirt.

Appearing in the clip, which has been posted to the BBC’s social media channels, William revealed details for the competition for children, which hoped to inspire the new generation to devise sustainable solutions for the planet.

He said: ‘I started the Earthshot Prize to search for solutions to the world’s biggest environmental challenges and we want to find the next generation of young inventors who can make a change.’

The competition invited children to use their imagination to come up with solution based inventions to help the planet, including prizes in five different categories.

There were awards to be one in the following categories: Fix our Climate, Protect and Restore Nature Clean our Air, Revive our Oceans, and build a waste free world.

Champions of the competition will receive a winner’s award as well as the chance to a attend a VIP filming experience with Blue Peter.

Lucky winners also attain a copy of the Earthshot book ‘A Handbook for Dreamers and Thinkers, Solutions to Repair our Planet’ as well as an exclusive orange competition winner’s badge.

To acknowledge their achievements, Earthshot winners will earn the chance to be recognised by the prince himself.

William launched the competition for adults four years ago with the aim of finding solutions to the climate crisis.

At the awards ceremony for the Earthshot prize last year, William said we were in the ‘critical decade’ to try and set the planet on a ‘healthier’ path to deal with the climate crisis.

Since 2021, the award scheme has handed out £15 million of prize money and sourced £50 million of further support for 45 winners and finalists.

The ideas are celebrated on today’s Blue Peter at 5pm, Friday 7 February, CBBC and BBC iPlayer.