Green Schools
The pupils and staff at St.Enda’s are currently working on the seventh Green Schools theme – ‘Global Citizenship: Energy’. This theme gives schools the chance to revise Energy and look at issues surrounding energy use globally.
Our student committee consists of pupils from 3rd to 6th Class. They are Jamie, Roisín, Nutsa, Lucy, Esmai, Leah, Aoibheann, Jakub and Siobhan.
We also have class monitors in each room to keep watch on our litter management, making sure the lights and whiteboard monitors are knocked off when not in use, watching out for taps running in the classroom and the bathrooms etc
The committee meet regularly to discuss ideas to help conserve energy in the school but also revisit other areas such as water, litter and biodiversity. And a cup of tea and a biscuit is always nice at the end of a productive meeting!
Picker Pals
Ms. Carkill’s class are really enjoying being ‘Picker Pal’s’. Picker Pals is a programme that operates around the very simple idea that the children take turns to bring a Picker Pack (containing all you need for a litter-picking adventure) home to their families and they go litter-picking in their local area. The programme is free and all the materials were kindly supplied to the school.
Ms. Carkill has set up a rota so that everyone in the class gets to bring the Picker Pack home for two nights and get their family involved in the important job of keeping our local area clean and litter free.
Energy Workshop
On Tuesday the 18th of April, we were delighted to have Aine from An Taisce visit us and facilitate three fantastic energy workshops.
Ms. Colfer’s class met Guzzler, the puppet who loves to waste energy. The class learnt, through a series of games and activities, where our energy comes from, why we need to save energy and how we save energy.
Ms. Carkill’s and Ms. Canavan’s classes enjoyed a great hands-on workshop where they explored the topic of energy. They carried out energy experiments, played the energy game, and had great fun while learning.
The workshop covered the following topics in an engaging and practical way.
· The principals of energy
- The current global problems and what we can do to help
- The science of energy and climate change
Many thanks to Aine, we had a fabulous day of learning and fun.
Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2024
from the Green Schools Team
Green Schools News! September 2024
Members of the Green Schools Committee were delighted to attend the Green Schools Awards 2024 in the Clayton Hotel in Galway last May. Aoibheann, Jack and Lucy represented St. Enda’s and were presented with the 7th Green Flag for working on the theme ‘Global Citizenship – Energy’. After the awards and presentation, we got to meet other schools and committee members over a delicious lunch. We chatted about the different themes and activities / days of action. It was a splendid conclusion to two years of enjoyable work. Many thanks to the organisers for a lovely day out and for the work they put into Green Schools.
GLOBE Ireland Air Quality Campaign
Our school is currently taking part in the GLOBE Ireland Air Quality Campaign. This is a citizen-science campaign to assess traffic-related air pollution at schools. It is an educational project designed to raise awareness about air pollution ,
The Green Schools team received monitoring tubes to measure nitrogen dioxide outside our school. Siobhan, Jakub, Fern and Aedan positioned the tubes at at three locations decided on by the committee – one near a main road (front of the school), one at a car park/drop off location (Jordan’s car park) and one in a relatively sheltered area (back of the school beside the astro). We sent back information about the tube location when we put them up. The tubes are going to be left up for a four-week period. We will then take them down and send the tubes to be analysed. We will let you know the results when we get them back.
