News from our Green Schools team!

Global Citizenship – Litter & Waste is the sixth Green-Schools theme. This maintenance theme enables schools to discover how Green-Schools work has positively influenced people and environments worldwide while revising the previous Litter and Waste theme.
Our pupil led committee has been working really hard to involve all the school in the many activities we have undertaken. Here are some that we really enjoyed taking part in.

Shoe Box Appeal
We had a visit from Wendy and the Hope Team to explain about Shoe Box Appeal. Wendy showed us pictures and videos of children receiving their shoebox and how this simple gift was so important to the children.

The Green Schools Committee held a meeting and went class to class to hand out leaflets and answer any questions about the appeal and what to put in the boxes. Over the next few weeks they did a super job of keeping the appeal fresh in the minds of all students and
showed their own boxes as examples of what to include.

On the 12th November the committee gathered all the shoeboxes and packed them into Mr. Malone’s car to be delivered to Team Hope.
Climate Change/ Carbon Cycle Workshop On the 18th January 2018, Ray Foley from An Taisce visited the school to do a Climate
change/ Carbon Cycle Workshop with 5th & 6th Class. The workshop focused on what carbon is, how it moves in a cycle and how it affects our environment and the climate. The workshop was really informative and we all really enjoyed it.

Litter & Recycling Promotion
The Committee decided to promote the importance of recycling and litter prevention and decided that 3rd and 4th Class would have a poster competition. MS. Cahill & Ms. Lernihan had a brainstorming morning with the class, slogans and posters were created and they
were displayed all over the school.

Dogs Trust
Aoife from Dogs Trust visited all classes and discussed how to correctly dispose of dog waste when we are out walking with our dogs.

Fair Trade
In March & April the committee focused on Fair Trade. We held a meeting and went through what fair trade was, how it helped producers in poorer countries and what products are available to us to purchase in Ireland. We made a presentation which the committee delivered to each class. Over the two months we gathered fair trade wrappers and made a super poster which is on display in the hall.

Zambia Reading Project
Evin Joyce visited our school and talked to 5th & 6th class about a twinned reading scheme with a school in Zambia. He gave a presentation and showed the class the limited resources children in Zambia have and how important our old books / readers / workbooks could be to their education. Over the coming weeks we collected lots of books and they were sent over to children to help them achieve their goal of receiving an education.  An online group was set up by Mr. Malone so messages and videos can be exchanged.

Incredible Edibles
From April to June we also took part in the Incredible Edibles Project – First and Second Class were chosen by the committee to perform the tasks on behalf of the school.  Incredible Edibles encourages schools across the country to get busy growing carrots, lettuce, potatoes, strawberries, turnips and herbs. As well as taking part in activities like planting, we learnt about the food cycle and the food pyramid in school.

Litter & Waste Presentation by Transition Years
In May, pupils from Transition Year in the local Secondary School gave a workshop to 5th & 6th class on our rubbish and how we dispose of it. They had games and quizzes after the presentation to see what we remembered. It was really informative and well presented by
some of our past pupils.

Our New Composter
Many thanks to the local Tidy Towns Committee who gifted the school a super new composter. We can’t wait to use the soil it creates in our school garden. Our composting team are doing a super job of gathering the bins and ensuring that each class is using their
compost bin correctly.

Global Citizenship Day of Action
We decided to organise a Multicultural Day led by Ms. Canavan’s and Mr. Malone’s classes. Earlier in the year we created our Global Citizenship board where we displayed all the countries that children in the school and their parents come from. We have pupils and
parents from all over the world!

The classes divided into groupings according to their ethnicity / country of interest. Over the coming weeks everyone worked so hard to gather information about their countries. We invited all our families and the Stella Maris Day Centre to the big day. It was a huge
success. Pupils spoke with confidence about their countries and the food that was prepared by the pupils and parents was amazing. It was definitely the highlight of the year. Many thanks to everyone who put in such a huge effort to make the day such a success

Green Schools – Global Citizenship