Green School
Our Green School Committee 
Our Green School Committee is made up of two students from each of the 17 classes from 1st to 6th and is run by parents (Emma O’Toole, Stephen Carter and Angela Tucker), teachers Anne Farrelly and Ciara Ryan and our caretaker, John.
The new student members are elected in September of each year by their classmates. Because our classes are re-grouped annually, it is necessary to elect a new committee. This also gives an opportunity for new people to spread the ‘Green Gospel’ each year.
Here is the committee for 2014/2015.
They carry out Green School tasks such as:
– Monitoring the 3 bins in each classroom; recycling, waste and compost.
– Emptying and washing the compost bin each day.
– Informing their classmates about Green School initiatives each month.
– Turning off lights and closing doors whenever the class exits the classroom and turning off the Interactive Whiteboards at the end of each day.
– They check that taps are turned off ASAP and that there are no leaks.
– Water, Litter and Energy Patrols take place each day. Once a month we review the results of their patrols. We then award the “Greenest Cleanest Class Award”.
Here is the committee after all their hard work last year:
We have a new Green School Slogan which we composed.
Here it is:
We like to follow the rules of our Green School Code:
Here are a few ideas from our December Meeting:
Recycled Christmas Decorations
1. Magazine Paper Chains
Collect old strips of paper/magazines/any coloured paper cut into strips of approx 8 inch x 1 inch. Make a loop gluing each end of the strip together, then link the next strip through the first loop and glue or sellotape the ends to create a chain. Repeat until you have a long chain, you can make it as long or as short as you like!
2. Tinfoil Bells
Take an old cardboard egg carton and cut out a two egg section – younger children can make them using one egg section at a time. Use a pencil to punch a small hole in the base of the two egg holders and thread some ribbon or string through the hole (don’t make the hole too big). Secure the ribbon with a knot and then cover the whole egg carton sections in used tinfoil to create silver bells!
3. Create a Crib/Sleigh
Take a well washed 3 litre plastic milk carton, lay the carton on its side handle side sticking up (you can now use the top opening as the front of the sleigh and decorate anyway you like). If making the crib cut out on side of the carton, use paper cut into very fine strips as the straw base of the crib and either use small figurines that are always lying around the house or make you own using decorated Actimel bottles, plasticine or decorated wooden pegs and arrange as you like. Baby Jesus in his crib can be made using an empty small Nerds box.
4. Our famous Water Bottle Christmas Tree
All you need is an empty 1/2 litre water bottle preferably a sports one with the pull up caps. Remove all the plastic labels and take the cap off the top. Place the end of a length of tinsel into the top of the bottle and carefully wrap the tinsel around the bottle until you reach the bottom. Secure both ends in place with sellotape, done! You can add additional decorations such as stars or dots to create the baubles and don’t forget to put a star or angel on the top!
Happy Christmas!
Don’t forget to
Switch it off!
Turn it off!
Recycle it!
Waste not, want not!
We are very excited about Halloween and love the idea of making our own recycled Halloween crafts for around the house.
Here are 2 great websites for lots of original ideas for Halloween and Christmas:
www.familysponge.com – try their Top 13 Recycled Halloween Crafts.
www.allfreeholidaycrafts.com – their Spider Spun Bun looks really cool.
Green School News 2014/2015
We would like to inform students and parents that we are continuing our Water Program for our third Green Flag. We will have some very exciting meetings ahead for this year with experiments and worksheets to complete.
Here are some photos of the committee making water filters.
If you would like to make a water filter please follow these instructions:
At the moment we are focusing on our Top Tips to Save Water around the house. We think people will be interested in these tips especially since Water Charges have been introduced!
Saving water is not just about saving money!
Water is an important resource and sufficient supply of clean water is essential to the health of both people and the environment. The raw material may appear to be plentiful, but worldwide, and even in parts of Ireland (particularly at certain times of year), it is an increasingly scarce resource.
More information can be found on these websites:
Water.ie – The homepage of Irish Water with information on water and conserving it at home and in the community.
TapTips.ie – Tips on water conservation with dedicated area for kids.
Thames Water (UK) – Tools for Schools Page
PlanetAqua.ie – Resources for students, teachers, parents and the wider community
SomethingFishy.ie – Water lesson plans
SlowTheFlow.ie – Slow The Flow is a water conservation campaign initiated by Galway City Council
TheWaterFamily.co.uk – Online water conservation game (UK)
Monday the 19th of May was a very exciting day for our school. We were awarded our second Green School Flag. The ceremony took place in Croke Park Conference Centre. Ms.Farrelly, our Green School Co-ordinator and three students from our Green School Committee were chosen to represent the school at the ceremony. We were one of ninteen schools from County Wicklow to receive a flag on the day.
The Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, made a speech and awarded each school their flag and a framed letter of congratulations. The Minister commended the pupils and staff of the schools for their achievements. “Attempting to reach the standards necessary to be awarded the green flag is a significant undertaking.” he said. “I am delighted to see young people like you doing a very important job in helping to make our environment as clean and healthy as possible. With all your good work on litter, waste, energy and water you are creating an improved environment for everyone and are helping in the fight against climate change.” Minister Gormley added.
Our photos show the flag being presented to our students by the minister along with representatives from Repak and An Taisce. The second photo shows the three girls arriving back at school with the flag-a very proud moment!
Green School News 2008/2009
This was a very busy year for us because we are not only have we beenworking our way through the programme on energy conservation for our second green school flag but we are also applied in April to retain our green school flag based on reducing litter and waste.
We did an audit of the school grounds in November and we set 2 new goals: to reduce the amount of chewing gum being thrown near the entrance of the school and to find some gardeners who might have some free time once a week to supervise us while we maintain the vegetable plot and the flower beds. Any takers? If you would like to help us improve our gardening skills, please contact Ms. Farrelly in the school.
We also checked our bins and found that we are still putting plastic in our waste bins when we should be putting it in our recycling bins! We are still wasting too much electricity on hand driers and too many paper towels. So another goal is to have everybody bring in a face cloth which can be used as a hand towel. We will be making graphs to show how much we have reduced our waste over the year.
We have been very busy saving energy too. We turn off lights and close doors as often as possible. Mr. O’Doherty has installed special reflective panels behind all the radiators to reduce heat loss and lower our energy bills.
We are having fun doing experiments about energy e.g. exploding volcanoes and rocket balloon races. We recently had a science and energy day in school demonstrating different experiments. We hope that by learning more about energy, we can learn how to conserve it and help our planet.
If you want to save energy too, you can check out websites like www.sei.ie or www.powerofone.ie.
Our Trip to the Recycling Centre
The girls from Ms. Farrelly’s class, Ms. Flanagan’s class and the Green School Committee recently went on a trip to the recycling centre on Boghall Road in Bray. Please read Shauna’s account of the trip below.
Our class went to the recycling centre on Tuesday the 24 of February. First a lady talked to us about fossil fuels, things we can do to help the environment and much more. After that we played a game. We got into teams and took turns standing on the mat, almost like a counter! Not long after that we did four different experiments. My favourite experiment was where you mixed vinegar and baking soda together in a bottle and put a balloon at the top. Give it a shake a you will notice that the balloon is growing bigger! Before we left the recycling centre each of us were given a box of colouring pencils (the box was a mobile phone) and a leaflet full of advice for travelling to school. This was probably the best tour I have had so far!
By Shauna Galligan
