Green School Biodiversity Theme.

The theme for Green Schools for the years 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 has been biodiversity. The students have been working hard in all the classes over the past few months learning about the plants and animals that live locally in our habitat. We have also been coming up with some ways to increase the biodiversity in our school. The boys and girls have made some ponds, and bug hotels recently which we hope can attract some more native Irish insects, plants and animals to our school grounds.

 

Green Schools – Travel Theme

Chiara Hanrahan, the Green-Schools Travel Officer from an An Taisce visited our school last week to speak to our Green-Schools Committee.  She discussed the different ways of travelling to school including walking, cycling and travelling by car.  She highlighted the benefits of walking and cycling and the negative impact of cars on the health of our environment.  Currently 96% of the children travel by car.  The Committee decided that we didn’t have a good walking infrastructure and a few suggested the possibility of car pooling.  Chiara will visit the school again in April to speak to all classes in more detail about the Green-Schools Programme in relation to travel.

Water Flag

Field Trip to Seskin Lisdowney Ballinaslee Group Water Scheme

On Thursday 6th of April, the Senior Room and Green School’s Committee went on a field trip to see how the SLB Group Water Scheme works. This group water scheme provides clean running water to many houses and farms in our local community. Roisín and Joe from the National Federation of Group Water Schemes guided us through the day. Paddy and Angela Mullally came along and explained how they maintain the scheme on a daily basis. We were blown away by what we learned and we have already begun our projects on the local scheme. Thanks to all involved in making the day such a great success, especially to Angela for organising the trip.

“Water Wise Workshops”

As part of our campaign for the Water Flag, we invited Úna from Global Action Ireland to the school to give three one and a half hour workshops to the classes on Water Conservation. Together, we did an in depth exploration of the Water Cycle, the story of a water droplet, water saving tips, water usage in our daily lives and in the processing of everyday food and clothing items, and much more. We had a great time with Úna and we hope she will visit us again soon. 

Water Action Day

On Friday the 17th of June, we held our ‘Water Action Day’. Thanks to everyone who contributed to our photo exhibition entitled “Water Flowing Through Our Lives”. This display helped us to realise how important water is in our everyday lives and why we must work hard to conserve it.

We wrote acrostic WATER poems and recited our Green Code together. Some children even made their own water costumes!

Each class presented wonderful water themed projects.

Ms. Brennan’s class:

Ms. Fennelly’s class:

Mr. Robinson’s Class:

The Green School’s committee would like to thank all classes and their teachers for making our “Water Action Day” such a great success.  A big thanks to all the parents who came along on the day and even took part in some of our experiments!

Water Butt

We recently installed a water butt in the yard. We will use the water we harvest to water our plants and to clean around the outside of the school. A big thank you to our caretaker Michael for helping us to install it.

Tips to Conserve Water

We are currently working on our third green flag for water.

There are lots of ways we can save water at home and at school. Here are a few tips:

• Turn off the taps when washing your teeth- this can save 7,000L of water per year!
• Take a short shower instead of a bath.
• Keep a jug of water in the fridge instead of letting the tap run to get cold water!
• Fill the kettle with just enough water for your needs.
• Collect rain water to water your plants.
• Don’t let the tap running when washing the dishes.
• Always fix leaking taps.
• Use your dish washer and washing machine only when they are full.

And don’t forget to….

• Turn off appliances when not in use.
• Reduce, reuse and recycle.

And please remember….

• We will recycle your old phones and batteries in school.

Keep an eye on the school website and our green schools noticeboard to keep up to date with all our work,

The Green School Committee.

Global Warming

Top 50 Things to Do to Stop Global Warming.  For more details please click here.

Water Saving Measures

This week we undertook some water saving measures around our school. The Green School’s Committee filled bottles with sand and placed them in all of the cisterns in the school. Each cistern holds 10 litres of water when full, however this has been reduced to 7 litres now that our water saving devices have been installed. 

The Green School’s Committee also placed basins in all of the classroom sinks to reduce the amount of water being used when washing up during art.

Green Code

Please see below our new Green Code.

Scoil Naomh Fiachra

Water Conservation Code

Scoil Naomh Fiachra get up and go,

We need to save our H2O.

Without this water we can’t survive,

Nor can we even stay alive.

Water wasting is not cool,

Let’s get a green flag for our school.

Putting up posters each day,

To save our water in every way.

Flush, rinse, drink and shower,

All these things shouldn’t take an hour,

We’re counting the water that we use,

To make sure that we’ve nothing to lose.

Put a basin in the sink,

And then we’ll have more water to drink.

You have to turn the tap half way,

To have enough for another day.

It really isn’t very hard,

To put water butts in the yard.

Let’s collect all this rain,

And see how much water we’ll gain.

Flag number one taught us about waste,

We must recycle to become a cleaner race.

Our energy flag was not that funny,

We learned wasting it costs serious money.

We are making this code,

As now we are in saving mode.

Teaching people about conservation,

To save our water for the next generation.

Getting our third flag will be great,

Water is here to love not hate.

Scoil Naomh Fiachra, a haon, a dó, a trí,

Saving water for you and me.

‘Be Water Smart’

A big thank you to everyone who took part in the Green-Schools Irish Water Poster Competition 2016 ‘Be Water Smart’. The posters were very impressive.  Here is a photo of some of the great posters that have been entered into the competition.  Best of luck everyone!