Monitoring and Evaluating

Step 4: Monitoring and Evaluating

Litter and Water Flag: 

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: every class, from first upwards 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!

2.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!

3.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 Flag: 

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.

4. Curriculum work in the classroom

5. Energy monitors in every classroom. 

Water Flag: 

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 Lucia, our School Building Manager.

3. BAM check for leaks in all school toilets every morning.

4.We introduced a new water filter in school so children can bring reusable containers and reduce the number of plastic bottles we use in the school. 

Curriculum Work

Step 5: Curriculum Work

The boys and girls in Merlin Woods Primary School have been busy learning about the things we can do to protect the earth and to make it a cleaner and safer place for us to live.

All classes have learned about the things we can do to reduce, recycle and reuse waste materials. In Junior and Senior Infants the children reuse empty boxes and cartons on a daily basis to create pieces of art. The children enjoy using their imaginations to create pieces of art with empty boxes they have brought in from home.

All classes in the school participated in the Food Dudes Programme at the beginning of this year. Eating more fresh fruit and vegetables every day is an important part of sustainable living.  The children learned about the benefits of eating fruit and vegetables over processed packaged food items.

Múinteoir Eimear’s First Class learned about the benefits of walking to school for their health and for the environment. The children have made a special effort to increase their daily step count by walking to school.

Our senior classes completed comprehensions and small projects learning about how modern life is impacting and affecting climate change. The children learned the negative impact of air and water pollution on our world and the world we share with other animals. The children in Fourth Class learned about the forest fires in Australia and how it impacted on human and animal life there.

Informing and Involving

Step 6: Informing and Involving 

Our Green Schools Committee were hugely involved in promoting ‘walking to school’ as method to travel to school among our staff community including informing teachers, parents and students. Our Green Schools Committee made announcements on the school intercom to inform others of the BIG TRAVEL Challenge and reminded classes to make special efforts to walk to school. They made announcements in school assemblies telling the children about our Action Day activities of ‘The Walking Bus’ and poster competition. We also use letters and newsletters to inform parents of Green Schools Activities throughout the school year, sometimes asking parents for support to participate in activities i.e. Walking Bus, Spring Clean and sending recyclable materials into school for art . The whole school community is also informed of Green School Activities through constant updates on our Green Schools noticeboard in the school corridor and through updates in the school website.

Our Green School Committee are actively involved in encouraging their peers to be environmentally aware. They are highly motivated and eager to make a difference. Their enthusiasm for making a real change to protect our environment was evident on the day they spoke to Hildegarde Naughton (TD) about the things they would like to see our government doing to promote sustainable living to our nation.

Travel Action Plan

Step 3: Action Plan

Fundamental to all our studies on Sustainable Travel  is an understanding of ways for pupils, staff and local government to work together to raise awareness of transport issues and come up with practical solutions that will make a real difference to pupils’ everyday lives. Take a look at some of the activities we have been up to!

Our Aims:

• We want to reduced levels of unhealthy weight through encouraging healthy active lifestyles.
• We need further reductions in the number of deaths through safer roads.
• It’s important to us that we have a cleaner and greener county with a reduced carbon footprint.
• We want a transport network which enables reasonable and predictable journey times with reduced congestion and reliable passenger transport services. Appropriate capacity for business and economic growth.

Green Code

Step 7: 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.

Our 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.

Our Travel Green Code: 

Keep it Green, Park the Machine!

Travel Tips for Parents

Travel Tips for Parents

Use public transport where possible.

Do your part for our environment.

Have respect for our Earth.

Be aware of your carbon footprint.

Do random acts of earth kindness.

Avoid the plane and take the train.

Talk about sustainable travel.

Pick up litter on your travels.

Spend time in nature.

Travel Facts

Travel Facts - Did you know: 

Half an hour of walking every day has been proven to enhance fitness and health.

The trip to school is one of the few opportunities for children to explore new areas independently.

Average walking speed is 3 to 4 km/h for children.

Children are part of the most mobile population group. They cover the largest distances per day on average.

Up to 10 bicycles fit into one car parking space.

2/3 of all urban car trips cover a distance of less than 5 km and could easily be replaced by the bicycle.

It doesn’t rain as much as people sometimes think; it only rains 6% to 10% of the time, mainly during the night.

Cycle pooling for school children is not only a healthy alternative to using the car, but is also fun.

Cycling is fun and helps users to explore their local surroundings.

Public transport, when used frequently, produces less emissions and consumes less energy and space, than cars.

Public means of transport are much cheaper compared to the total costs of a car.

With public transport you can do other things during the trip, like reading, watching a movie, playing a game, text messaging or talking to friends and/or fellow passengers.

Half of all car journeys are less than 3 km.

On average, 42 minutes per day are spent on driving children to different destinations by car.

  

Only children who regularly walk/cycle to school on their own gain the necessary road safety skills.

Most children involved in car traffic accidents are up to the age of 10 years.

Environmental Review

Step 2: Environment Review

We took an initial survey in October 2018 when we began our work on the travel flag. We took another travel survey in February 2019 as part of the Big Travel Challenge. This survey measured how many children walked to school for 10 consecutive days. In December 2019, we took a random, one day survey, to check in and see how well we were doing walking to school for our second year working on the Travel theme. We participated in the Big Travel Challenge again this year and choose walking as our sustainable travel method to compare our surveys and analyse our results.

Green Schools Committee

Step 1: Green School's Committee

Merlin Woods Primary School established it’s Green School Committee in 2011 and to date have successfully attained and maintained three green flags, one for ‘Litter and Waste’, a second for ‘Energy’ and a third for ‘Water’. The school is currently working on its fourth flag which is on the theme of ‘Travel’. In order to achieve this flag we must continue to reduce our litter and waste, keep our energy use down, continue to reduce the amount of water the school uses and raise awareness of transport issues in our community. We began working on the travel theme in October 2018.

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 their green travel ideas. The green team help to show the their classmates different jobs, and explain the action plan.  There are 10 students in total on the committee– 2 from each class level. We also established a sub-committee in each classroom. Their jobs are as follows:

• Energy Detectives
• Recycling Experts
• Water Wizards
• Travel Agents

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.