Our Water Flag Blog
Green-Schools, known
internationally as Eco-Schools, is an international environmental education
programme, environmental management system and award scheme that promotes and
acknowledges long-term, whole school action for the environment. Unlike a
once-off project, it is a long-term programme that introduces participants
(students, teachers, parents and the wider community) to the concept of an
environmental management system.
Merlin Woods Primary School
established it’s Green School Committee in 2011 and to date have successfully
attained and maintained two green flags, one for ‘Litter and Waste’ and a
second for ‘Energy’. The school is currently working on its third flag which
is on the theme of ‘Water’. In order to achieve this flag we must continue to
reduce our litter and waste, and keep our energy use down and now start to
reduce the amount of water the school uses. We began working on the water theme
in October 2016.
Green School’s Committee
In Merlin Woods Primary
School the committee is made up of students from 2nd to 6th class.
The children have been elected to the Green School’s Committee by their class
teachers. We are delighted to hear from the committee members in the
classroom, telling us all about our water conservation ideas. The green
team help to show the their classmates different jobs, and explain the action
plan. There are 12 students in total on the committee– 2 from each 5th and
6th class and one from 2nd, 3rd and 4th. We also
established a sub-committee in each classroom. Their jobs are as follows:
- Energy
Detectives
- Recycling
Experts
- Water Wizards
Students from Junior
Infants to 1st class are not represented on the Green School’s
Committee. These students will be kept informed by their class teachers
and by the children on the committee who will visit each class to pass on the
necessary information e.g. our green school rules, surveys and competition
details etc.
Our Work to Date
- Múinteoir
Annmarie and Múinteoir Oonagh attended a teacher workshops run by An
Taisce.
- We set up our
Green School committee.
- We monitored and
recorded the amount of water being used in the school by talking to Barry,
our School Building Manager.
- BAM check for
leaks in all school toilets every morning.
- The green school
committee has highlighted on our map of the school anywhere water is being
used.
- Maintain our
Litter and Waste Flag - Reuse orange peel to make potpourri as a
third class enterprise project.
- Our second class pupils entered an art competition being run by Galway City Council. The theme of the competition is Keep Galway Litter Free (Coinnigh Gaillimh Glan). Here are some of our entries.
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· Guest Speakers:We participated in two one hour workshops provided by Galway County Council. Lieze Fanning from Galway City Council and Sean Corrigan from Irish Water visited the children from 2nd, 4th and 5th class. The children learned all about their local treatment plant, water saving ideas and got to see some very interesting water based science experiments!
- · Spring Clean Day:We organized a whole school spring clean day. We took advantage of the fine weather and headed out to clean up our local area in Doughiska. We all put on our gloves and brought a bag with us to put the rubbish into. Some of the locals we met thanked us as we cleaned the skatepark and the tennis court. We had great fun cleaning our local area and were very proud to see the area so clean when we had finished!
- Fundamental to
all our studies on water is an understanding of the water cycle. This
was the focus in all Geography classes in January 2017.
- We had a visit
from the Inland Fisheries Board in May 2017, who taught 5th class
about the fish that live in Irish waters. The fifth class then created a
project based on all the new information they obtained and put it on
display for all the children in the school to visit!
- Múinteoir
Karmel, Múinteoir Damien and a group of children from the older classes
decided to brighten up our school by planting and maintaining our inside
forest and outdoor gardens. Last year, they created a garden in the foyer
of the school to bring a little bit of nature inside. They grew grass and
tulips and watched ivy grow, and as the garden evolved, the response to it
was very positive. This encouraged the school to enter the garden into
Bloom 2017.
- They have also
established a vegetable garden and the pupils from The Wise Oaks also help
maintain. They have planted many vegetables and flowers and are
making sure they are watered to grow. Look how busy we've been working as
a team to look after our garden! Our wonderful team effort has been
commended for their effort. ‘Escape Into Nature’ from Merlin Woods Primary
School, Doughiska has been created to look like a miniature forest walk.
- Lots of the
classes completed excellent work about saving water, making fish,
explorers who travelled on the water, the water cycle, science experiments
with water and our first class even went on the Corrib Princess for their
school tour!
· We also invited guest speaker – Sean Corrigan again from Irish
Water to help children write their own newspaper and create a video based on
water conservation and what water means to us. We went to the council chamber
in Galway City Hall to a reception to celebrate the launch of 'Slow the Flow
e-Booket' on Wednesday the 8th of November 2017 at 4pm. This allowed us to
inform the wider public of our water flag work.
Monitoring and Evaluating
Water theme:
1.) Each class has a “Water
Wizard” to monitor running taps, watch water usage and ensure that taps are
switched off after school.
2.) We monitored and
recorded the amount of water being used in the school by talking to Barry, our
School Building Manager.
3.) BAM check for leaks in
all school toilets every morning.
4.) The green schools
committee are monitoring the schools water usage and publishing data on the
number received. They are given the water meter rates by the school building
manager and formulate graphs on the usage to be displayed on the schools notice
board.
5.) 4th class completed a
water quiz to assess their knowledge before we began working on our water flag
last year. A follow up survey will be completed in June to assess children’s
knowledge of water processes and actions.
Litter and Waste theme:
1.) The previous themes
have been monitored and were focused on heavily in the first year of the theme
and first few weeks after holidays in September, November and January. To help
maintain our Litter and Waste Flag - we reused orange peel to make potpourri as
a third class enterprise project.
2.) Our second class pupils
entered an art competition being run by Galway City Council. The theme of the
competition is Keep Galway Litter Free (Coinnigh Gaillimh Glan). Some of our
entries even made it onto the calendar!
3.) We organized a whole
school spring clean day. We took
advantage of the fine weather and headed out to clean up our local area in
Doughiska. We all put on our gloves and brought a bag with us to put the
rubbish into. Some of the locals we met thanked us as we cleaned the skatepark
and the tennis court. We had great fun cleaning our local area and were very
proud to see the area so clean when we had finished!
4.) Junior and Senior
infants reuse paper from the photocopier and old worksheets during Aistear time
for the writing table. During aistear time the children are encouraged to make
things from recycled materials for the junk art station.We are still working on
our litter and waste and energy theme. We have a recycling centre in the
school to recycle:
Mobile phones
Batteries
Energy theme:
We are very proud to be
flying our second green flag (energy). In order to achieve this award we have
been:
1. Turning off lights when
not needed.
2. Closing doors to keep
the heat in.
3. Turning off interactive
boards.
We have made a list of tips and tricks for the people within our community.
Second Class Water Saving
Tips
1. Have a shower instead of
a bath.
2. Turn off your taps when
cleaning your teeth.
3. Don't overfill the
kettle.
4. Make sure that sprinklers
spray onto garden beds only.
5. Fix taps when they are
broken.
6. Collect rainwater.
7. Don't waste a lot of
water.
8. Use more brick paving,
less lawns and garden space.
9. Do not put too much
tissues in the toilet.
10. Use a bucket when
washing your car.
Green Code
We the staff and students of Merlin Woods Primary
School are dedicated to creating a clean, healthy and pleasant school
environment. We feel it is important for the school community to have an
awareness and understanding of the effects of their actions upon the
environment in which they live and work.
We aim to
continue to achieve this by our Green School Code:
1. Continue all recycling and composting.
2. Walk, cycle, scoot or take the bus to school.
3. Exercise and eat healthily.
4. Use water sparingly.
5. Don’t waste food.
6. Switch off lights and electrical equipment
when they’re not needed
7. Keep doors and windows closed when the heating
is on.
8. Respect the plants and animals on our school
grounds.
While or Green
code for the Water theme is:
Come on guys,
Be water wise!
Take the tip,
And stop the drip!
Turn it off all day and night,
Merlin Woods is water tight!
Upcoming Events
Our Walk for Water “Action
Day” for school participation and awareness-raising.
During our day of action,
we want to raise awareness of water scarcity and show solidarity with children
worldwide by walking a suitable distance carrying a certain amount of water.
Safe drinking water and basic sanitation should be accessible to everyone.
Women and children in countries around the world walk on average six km a day
to access water which is often unclean or simply not there due to drought or
abstraction. By walking for water we hope to fundraise for water projects and
raise awareness. We have chosen our date, the 15th of November and invited the
whole school to participate. We will be walking a suitable distance, based on
the class level, around the pitches beside our school. We have promoted our
walk on our notice board, during assemblies and in the school newsletter and we
are hoping the day will be a great success.
Redo the Water Quiz from
October to see if awareness has increased.
Tuesday 15th
November: Invite parents into our school to show them our efforts to save water
and inform them of all our water conservation tips.
