Today some children from third and fifth class visited Mulqueen's Garden Centre to learn how to plant flowers in hanging baskets and window boxes. Thank you to Tony Mulqueen for his wonderful help and advice and thank you to Billy Cusack, our fantastic caretaker, for organising the visit. We now have beautiful hanging baskets in front of our school.

Here are some members of our Green Schools Committee decorating the recycled tyres that we painted yellow last year. We will use these as planters to brighten up our school grounds. In keeping with the biodiversity theme, we decorated them with bees, butterflies, ladybirds and flowers.

A project by a group of children from 3rd class has been shortlisted for the SEAI 'One Good Idea' competition. Our project is about the importance of trees in the carbon cycle of planet Earth. We are researching how trees work to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen and investigating the effects of deforestation on this. We will be launching our school-wide campaign in the coming weeks. You are sure to see our posters around the school!

Áine visited our school to teach us all about renewable and non-renewable resources, global warming and energy efficiency. First, second and third class took part in the workshop. We even got to play a life sized board game to test our knowledge. Thanks for a fun day Áine!

Here are some photos of some of our work from term three. Work included tree surveys, flower and plant surveys, planting and a spring clean of the local area and school grounds.

This week the Green Schools Committee and a selection of students from 2nd to 6th Class visited Seed Savers in Scarriff to do a biodiversity workshop. We learned how to survey plants and trees, identify insects and examined creatures from a pond. We will be able to put some of our new skills to good use in our work towards our 5th Green Flag.

Back in October, both first classes planted horse chestnuts. We learned all about what plants need to survive and carefully placed our chestnuts into pots and covered them with soil. We watered them and placed them in a sunny spot. Now that spring has arrived, we hope that our chestnuts will sprout and begin to grow. 

The Green Schools Committee are delighted to hear that Ms. Collins, 
Ms. Vaughan and their pupils are undertaking an exciting craft project, on the theme of biodiversity, under the guidance of ceramist Jackie Maurer. We love this creative way of engaging with the theme and look forward to watching your project as it unfolds. Here is a picture of some pupils researching animal, plant and bird life. Click on the button below to visit the CraftEd team's very own blog.

Welcome to our Green Schools page! Here, we will keep you updated on our work towards our 5th Green Flag on the theme of Biodiversity. The Green Schools Committee is made up of student representatives from 2nd to 6th Class, Ms. de Barra and Mr. Crehan (teachers) and Mr. Cusack (caretaker). 

Click on the links below to learn about what biodiversity is and why it is so important. 
Check back here soon to see who the winner of our Green Code poster competition is.