Green-Schools’ is an international project designed to encourage and acknowledge whole school action for the environment. Here in Bunscoil Bhride we are celebrating eighteen years of working on the Green Schools’ project. We have been awarded nine green flags over that period for our work on:
Citizenship Theme –Years 9 /10
Our Green School’s Committee is the driving force of the project and the committee consists of children, parents, teachers, our school caretaker, Nigel Martin, our school secretary, Catriona Mulpeter, and Elizabeth Birch and Jessica Farrell local environmentalists.
The children on the committee are taken from 2nd Class to 6th Class and we select new children each year encouraging the involvement of as many children as possible.
We have a very successful recycling programme working throughout the school. We recycle newspapers, cans, cardboard, scrap-paper, plastic bottles, mobile phones, ink-jet cartridges, batteries and stamps. We encourage healthy lunches and collect organic materials for composting each day. We monitor litter and have litter collections in and around our school once a term. We conserve energy and water. We encourage our school community to think about their travel arrangements and to find more environmentally friendly ways of travelling to and from school and elsewhere. We promote walking to school on Wednesday. We encourage bird watching and feed the birds each day. We encourage planting of flowers and vegetables and have begun working on a school garden. We produce a Green-School’s Newsletter.
Last year we were awarded our 8th Green Flag based on the theme Global Citizenship / Energy. We encouraged our school to think about citizenship. We are citizens of Ireland, Europe and the World. As a citizen of a community or state you are expected to exercise your rights and respect the rights of others and you are encouraged to participate in the improvement of the quality of both the political and civic life in your community and/or state for everyone. Being a true Global citizen means that we understand that all people have equal rights while at the same time valuing their differences. It also means that we value the earth as a precious resource upon which we all depend and of which we should take the utmost care.
During the year we conducted a survey of nationalities in our school and global awareness surveys. We worked on conserving energy and the effects of climate change. We also continued to maintain our work in all other areas of green school as in previous years.
This year we are working on our new theme Global Citizenship-Marine Environment.