Environemntal Awareness and Care 2019

Environmental Awareness and Care

Autumn Leaf Art

Environmental Awareness and Care

1st class, Ms Martin

Habitats

Environmental Awareness and Care > Caring for my locality

1st class, Ms Martin

Nature Trail

Environmental Awareness and Care

1st class, Ms Martin

Climate Action

Environmental Awareness and Care

6th class, Ms Galavan

Renewable Energy - Windmills

Environmental Awareness and Care

6th class, Ms Burns

We went on an Autumn Nature Walk and collected many things. We used these to create Autumn Art!

Students in first class explored different habitats. They worked in groups to create their own habitats using a range of recyclable materials. The habitats could be real or imaginary. During this process children explored both natural and human features of the local environment and incorporated these features into their constructions.

We went on a natural hunt around our school and in our school garden. We had to find objects of as many different colours that we could to create our own ‘Nature Paint Palette’.

We also had to find items in nature that had different properties and characteristics - such as: rough, foliage, seed, coniferous, soft, cone, red, deciduous etc.

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6th class were discussing climate change and the actions we can take to help slow down the effects of climate change.

We designed our own town of 2050, under the headings of energy, food, waste, transport, buildings and nature. We were looking for the most energy efficient and ‘green’ town.

Some of the ideas we came up with included having a ban on the use of single- use plastic, a financial incentive for people to plant their own tree and grow their own food, rain water collectors to reuse rain for watering plants or to filter it to be used in the home.

Once we had designed our towns we then discussed working towards Márta Glas – we pledged to make 1-3 small changes in our daily lives during the month of March to do our bit for tackling climate change.

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We learned about windmills one day for science and how it creates renewable sources of energy. We looked at how the windmills you would see in a wind farm creates energy by spinning around. The proper names for these windmills are called wind turbine engines. Scientists hope to use them instead of using other methods that contribute to global warming. After we were given a task to make our own windmills out of card, pencils and rubber bands. The aim was to make a windmill that will spin and hoist a small object tied to a string while we blew air on it with a hairdryer as a wind source. We had to make it so the propellers would catch the air easily. After making a plan we tried to make propellers to stick onto our pencil using card. Then we used tape to stick the pencil down to the table and blew the hairdryer on it. Unfortunately it didn’t work and another team had already done it but finally after we tried to use a different pencil it worked!

Cool Planet Experience by Bobby Lonergan

The two third classes went to the Cool Planet experience for a visit. When we arrived we got our cool planet wrist bands and then we did a survey. It asked us a few questions about our carbon footprint. If you don’t know what a carbon footprint is it’s a thing where we would have to plant trees to make the environment better and if your carbon footprint is high it means you were making more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and you will have to plant more trees to balance it out. It showed how big our footprint is and mine was 392. When we went into the first room we saw a 3 minute video of what climate change is doing to the world. It showed fires, storms and tornados! Next we went into the F word game and the F stands for food. There were questions about how we eat, plastic, greenhouse gases and how much food we throw out each year. We throw out 40% of the food that we buy in Ireland. There was fake ads that were showing us throwing out money and a holiday with only plastic in the seas and that’s how it’ll be in the future if we don’t do something. The next room was where we were playing games to save the city. There were games like charging electric cars, dodging the cars when you’re on a bike and turning off switches. As we played each game the city would get better and greener. In the last room we would make pledges to lower our carbon footprints. We pledged to cut down on plastic, eat less meat, reduce our food waste, take less flights and put on a jumper instead of the heating if we are cold at home.

We had a great time at Cool Planet and learned a lot about the environment and how to become agents of change against climate change.