We are so proud of both of our Transition Year teams that entered the Young Environmentalist Awards this year, who have made it to the finals. There is now a voting system in place which will determine the winners this year . You can vote as many times as you want so please support these amazing project, using the details below:
John the Baptist Community School: “Hospital Habitat Protectors “
Category: Biodiversity
Age Group: Senior
Reg. No: 2020-256
Project Description:We saw a new building being constructed in the school to cater for growing student numbers. We saw another one of our green spaces disappear. We wanted to preserve the green spaces we had left while also compensating for the spaces lost. We decided that planting native Irish trees and providing food to wildlife would allow biodiversity to thrive. We researched where we could source Native Irish saplings and found the Irish Seed Savers Association and contacted Liz O Sullivan who agreed to provide us with 30 native apple trees. We then brought our idea to our principal who agreed to fund the bus to Ennis and the trees. Our principal thought that funding from the student body would also give students a sense of ownership of the woodland. We brainstormed and decided to hold a green day in school where all First Years would donate 1 euro to the trees. We then held a meeting with the horticultural department in school and agreed that we should use plastic bottles to create birdfeeders which would encourage wild birds to our woodland. The TY horticultural class made these in December and we fill these every week to ensure that there is a constant supply of food to the birds
See the Limerick Post for more information: https://www.limerickpost.ie/2020/05/08/limerick-teens-reach-national-environmental-awards/
Vote at this link: VOTE HERE using the code 2020-256
John The Baptist Community School: “The Baptist Waste Busters”
Category: Waste
Age Group: Senior
Reg. No: 2020-199
Project Description: The main aim of our project was to lower or totally get rid of plastic waste such as plastic bottles and boxes in our school and to try and get the pupils in our school to bring their own reusable water bottle instead of buying a plastic bottle from the canteen. We called this ‘Boxit’ (boxes exit our school ). We came up with this idea when we were in the canteen and saw how much plastic was being used once and then thrown away to be found in a dump, or even worse in our sea to harm our sea life. To help with the plastic bottle situation our school installed a water machine so this encouraged more students to bring their own reusable water bottle and also benefited the students because they can fill up their water as many times as they want when they want. The water machine also counted how many people used it a day so we could see was there a difference in people buying bottled water. We also put out bins especially for the used plastic boxes after lunch and the horticultural classes used them as tubs for planting seeds in after they were rinsed out. Our goal for this project was to see a drop in students purchasing plastic bottles and tubs, we did achieve this as we saw a drop in people buying bottled water and more people brought their own lunch instead of buying dinner in plastic containers.
Vote at this link: VOTE HERE using the code 2020-199