Features
"All this waste, we have to ban it, if we want to save our planet!"
The Green-Schools Project is an international environmental educational programme. The programme is run by FEE, the foundation for Environmental Education. This programme is running in various countries: in Europe, Africa, South America, Oceania and Asia. It offers schools opportunities to take environmental issues from the curriculum and apply them to the day to day running of a school. Benefits of the Green-Schools project include: reducing waste and litter, improving the school environment, helping develop the children's decision making skills, building pupils confidence and sense of citizenship, linking with other schools locally and internationally and ultimately gaining a prestigious award. The definitive aim of the programme is to put into practice environmental awareness which is taught from the curriculum and putting these newly learned skills into action, in the school and the local community.
Green web page
There are five themes in the Green-Schools programme: Litter and Waste, Energy, Water, Transport and Healthy living. Our school, St. Catherine's NS, Donore Ave, Dublin 8, has just applied for the award for the Litter and Waste theme. When working through each theme there are seven steps to follow: Green-Schools Committee, Environmental Review, Action Plan, Monitoring and Evaluation, Curriculum Work, Informing and Involving and Green Code. The committee are there to ensure that all other six steps are successfully adopted and implemented. This committee is primarily made up of pupils, although it is up to the school to decide how involved all the pupils will be. In St. Catherine's there are two children from each class making sixteen pupils in total. Any school going for Green-School status must also include teachers, other school staff, parents and members of the local community. In the initial stages of the Green-School project the committee have a lot of work to do. In the beginning the committee was the only channel of communication to the rest of the student body and the larger school community. This changed however, when Karen Jordan, one of the committee members and mainstream class teacher, set up a Green School web page on the school web-site. Please go to www.stcatherinesns.net and click on the Green-Schools link to see all the work that has been achieved over the last year.
Community involvement
One of the fundamental principles behind Green-Schools is that environmental topics covered in the classroom should influence the way the whole school operates. Therefore, the Green-Schools programme should be integrated with curriculum work as much as possible. In order to inform and involve the school and wider community St. Catherine's had two "Action Days". As our school had little or no green space the first action day was taken up with breaking through concrete and tarmacadam creating a space where flower beds could be established. Our second action day was spent painting the walls in the back yard as well as planting and weeding. The children also planted peas, beans, sunflowers and collected the seeds and beans to dry for next year's planting. The programme also states that the school must have a slogan and here is what one pupil at St. Catherine's came up with:
"All this waste, we have to ban it, if we want to save our planet!"
As part of the Green-Schools project we must recycle, compost and have green areas in the school. In St. Catherine's, Friday is the designated day for a trip to the bring centre, one class per week bring recyclable plastics to the local centre. We have also set up facilities for the recycling of mobile phones, ink cartridges and batteries. Mobile phones and ink cartridges will be sent to Tesco for computer and P.E. equipment. For our next flag, Energy, we will get a battery recycling bin allowing safe collection and recycling of caustic chemicals. Friday is also the designated day where each child can bring in some suitable composting materials from home e.g. vegetables peelings, tea bags, leaves and a small amount of grass cuttings - the children have learned that no meat or dairy products can be put into a compost bin. Over the course of the last year the school has hosted a number of fundraising events: Green Fancy Dress day (Green as in recycled or Green as in the colour), Green Hat day, Pyjama Day, Cake Sale and a Daffodil sale. Each pupil was asked to donate €2. As a school we have also changed over to ecologically/environmentally friendly cleaning products, Lillies and Ecover.
Co-operative effort
In order to make the project work it is important that the committee has the support of the Principal and Board of Management and that there is a general willingness to involve children in decision-making and action at every stage. Active involvement of all staff members and ultimately a willingness to take action to create long-term change is also encouraged.
Currently well over a half of all Irish schools are participating in Green-Schools. In numbers this equates to around 500,000 students and 33,000 teachers involved in the programme. Currently 895 schools have achieved the Green-Flag. Recent research has indicated that schools that complete the waste and litter theme of the programme are reducing their waste to landfill by on average 62%, with some schools achieving almost zero disposal of waste. The combined direct effect of Green-Schools on waste in Ireland is a diversion of 4-5 tonnes from landfill everyday. The combined direct and indirect effects (i.e. effects in the wider community) on waste in Ireland are estimated at around 4-5,000 tonnes diverted per year.
We at St. Catherine's have just applied for our first Green flag and are hoping to receive it at the beginning of March. When we receive it there will be a day of celebration to accompany the flag raising ceremony.
