2023/2024
Digging up the last of the vegetables before planting new seeds
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2022/2023
Biodiversity
The Green Schools Team have been working hard with Ms. Flynn and Ms. Fallon towards the Green Flag for Biodiversity! Amazing work has been going on all over the school!
2021/2022
Visit from the Lord Mayor
We recently welcomed the Lord Mayor of Dublin Alison Gilliland to the school. She met with the Green School's Committee and helped to plant a tree. The Green School's Committe have been working hard with Ms. Flynn and Ms. Fallon over the last year towards the Green School's Flag for Biodiversity.
2018/2019
Assessment Visit
On Tuesday 26th February, Audrey Duff from An Taisce visited our school and carried out an assessment to see if our school meets the criteria for Green Flag status. For the past two years we have all been working very hard on the themeGlobal Citizenship and the Marine Environment and we wanted to showcase some of that work during the assessment visit.
The Green Team, Mr. Brougham, Mr. O Shea, Ms. Dineen and Ms Roche met Audrey in the meeting room and talked her through our Green School folder which documented our work over the past two years. Audrey asked the children questions about the work they have been doing and the children told her all about our Action Day and our work with Marine Dimensions. They spoke about our trip to the Interpretive Centre in Bull Island and the 2 minute beach clean we carried out on Dollymount strand.
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The Fifth Class Green Team representatives: Josh Russell, Jody Byrne, Leonardo Folea and Amy Boyne presented bar charts with data from our Weather station from 2018. November was the month with the highest average percipitation with 168.4 mm and the lowest average percipitation was in June with 9.6 mm. The month with the highest average wind speed was January with wind speeds reaching as high as 75.6 Km/Hr. Our lowest average wind speed was in July reaching 35.4 Km/Hr. We reached our highest temperature in July with an average temperature of 26.6’ C and our lowest average temperature was in March with a temperature of 11.9’ C. We are so lucky to have our very own Weather Station in St. Paul’s!
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We then guided Audrey to Ms. Kehoe’s room where Sam Casey, Eadaoin O Brien, Louis Geraghty, Shane Farnham and Mason Keelan read the story Sammy Shark Saves the Sea. Audrey loved listening to this story. She enjoyed the humour in the story and thought the message about protecting our Marine Life was also very strong. Well done to all involved! See the full adventures of Sammy the Shark below this post.
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After listening to this story, Audrey visited Room 6 where Third class read out a letter they wrote to Michael D Higgins about the seriousness of plastic pollution. The reply from Aras an Uachtaran was also read and then the class performed their ‘Green’ version of the song Baby Shark!
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To conclude the visit, Sixth Class presented their project work on the Marine Environment. The children looked at four groups of people who were using the Marine Environment in a respectful way. They studied clips from Human Planet which showed how important the ocean was to people all over the world.
Javier and Angel were living in Galicia in Northern Spain. They were collecting GOOSE BARNACLES in the Bay of Biscay. The work was dangerous but made them a good living as they sold their catch to the local restaurants. They only took what they needed from the ocean which meant there was a steady food supply.
Benjamin was living in Indonesia. He and his fellow fishermen were hunting a Sperm Whale by harpooning it. This seemed very cruel at first but they used every part of the whale. It fed the whole village for 2-3 months! So they were not over-fishing as they only needed to take a few whales every year.
Edson was a fisherman living in Brazil. He and his fellow fishermen were catching Red Mullet just along the shore. They had help from the local dolphins who signalled to the fishermen to let them know where the Red Mullet were. The dolphins also herded the Mullet towards the shore which made it easier for Edson and his friends to catch them. They had no boats, only hand-held nets and they only took what they needed from the ocean.
Finally, we met Tom who was living in Hawaii and was using the ocean for surfing. Surfing is a hugely popular sport in Hawaii and has spread all over the world from there. Many years ago if you were a good surfer in Hawaii, you were considered to be a God!
The Sixth Class discussed how all these people interacted with the ocean and whether they thought they were using or abusing it. They judged each situation and in all cases they were happy the people were using the ocean respectfully…even though they were sorry to see the Sperm Whale die so harshly!
They then discussed the way plastic is polluting our oceans. They paid particular attention to Microbeads.
They learned about what Microbeads are and how they manage to get into our oceans. They learned that they never really break down and that because the fish eat them, they have entered the food chain and are finding their way into the human diet.
They examined two face cleaning products from L’oreal. The first one actually advertised that it contained Microbeads and we could feel them in it. The second one was the same product but the Microbeads had been replaced by sand which is, of course, a natural substance and therefore not a danger for fish or people.
Emilia designed a piece of Art showing how Microbeads are affecting the Marine Environment. She and her team: Niamh O Brien, Ellie Ussher and Kate Ryan also put together a very effective collage.
Overall, it was a very successful assessment visit and Audrey Duff was delighted to see all our hard work. We will submit the official Application for our Fourth Green Flag later this month. We are hopeful we have met all the criteria – Stay tuned!
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Sammy Saves the Sea
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