Green Schools 2023/24

Global Citizenship Marine Environment

This year our fantastic Green Team has been working towards our 8th Green Flag- Global Citizenship: Marine Environment.

Green School Flag by Tom

Here are some of the activities we completed this year:

September- Global Goals Week

In September all of our classes learned about the sustainable development goals and how they relate to the ocean. To mark the end of Global Goals week, we had presentations in the halla from all classes on the related work completed over the past week.• Junior Infants impressed upon us the need to use reusable water bottles and wowed us with the song 'Baby Shark'.
• Senior Infants shared all the amazing facts they had learned about sea creatures and sang the song 'Apusski Dusky', a beautiful song about sardines.
• Next up was First Class who created the most amazing posters about sea creatures that inhabit rock pools and
taught us all about these interesting creatures.

• Second Class studied the ocean explorer Eugiene Clarke, and did an in-detail study about sharks and shared that learning with us.
• Third Class completed projects on a variety of marine life and we were all so informed having listened to their wonderful presentations.
• Fourth Class studied the ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau and shared very interesting facts about the history of bottled water and the advertising techniques used to persuade buyers to purchase.
• Fifth Class studied threats to ocean life and Sixth Class completed a study on microplastics.

All classes did such a fantastic job with their presentations and this work has laid down such strong foundations as we
begin our two-year journey to attaining our eight Green School Flag 'Global Citizenship: The Marine Environment'. We
closed our assembly with some beautiful singing. It was lovely to have had some parents/guardians in the audience. A big
well done to all the children, and teachers, who have worked so hard over the past week on their ocean explorations.

October- Plastic Free Pledge

Our Green Schools committee pledged to reduce use of plastic in the school by having waste free lunches and using reusable bottles.

November- Marine Workshop

3rd and 4th class members of the Green Team got invited to an exciting marine workshop run by Green Schools! Our 4th class members wrote reports.

Firdaws
My name is Firdaws. I am 9 years old. Today I came to the Strand Hotel on 28/11/23. I like Limerick Strand Hotel because it looks really fancy and the hotel has glass elevators. You can see a beautiful view. We are learning about water, the marine environment, recycling and water animals. The ocean is part of our world. Oceans regulate our climate. Fish and seaweed are in the oceans.

Sharks, whales, clownfish, seaweed, crabs, jellyfish, starfish, sea scorpions, seals, walrus and shellfish all live underwater. There are over 250,000 different plants and animals living in our oceans! Every day more and more are being discovered!

We are not separate from nature, we are a part of it! Let’s stop polluting! Marine litter is bad because it makes our beaches ugly. It can entangle and hurt animals and animals can accidentally eat it.

For lunch, we ate pasta with sauce and sparkling water.

To help we should 1. Invest in a reusable water bottle. 2. Use a lunch box instead of cling film or a plastic bag.

Cara
My Day at the Strand Hotel
I am in the Green School so I went to the Strand today to learn about the oceans. We got to miss school and that is just a bonus. The schools were signing in so we got to watch a video camera live streaming under the sea.

We warmed up by taking the shape of animals like dolphins. We talked about what we have done so far in Green Schools. For example, we said energy. We talked about the beaches and which ones are our favourite. We talked about some harbours around Ireland like Doolin pier.

Next we learned about plants in the oceans and how they help us breathe. Then we talked about the food that we get from the sea. Scientists have done research on seaweed and have discovered that it has lots of benefits.

We had a small bit of competition. We had 3 minutes to write down as many species of fish as possible. We named 35 species! Did you know that starfish can regrow their legs?
Next we moved on to how we can litter and how we can stop it. Did you know, 85% of litter in the ocean comes from land?

Snack time! We were offered cookies and Mi Wadi. The cookies were very good.

After that, we did a treasure hunt. We had to find cards and put them into categories like type of marine litter. It was fun! Next we learned about single use plastics and the effects it has on the environment. Help the world by not buying balloons and microplastics. To help the environment, they gave us a bamboo toothbrush and a reusable water bottle.

We did some art. For the art, we used plastic like bottle caps. We used super glue so Kate and Robin helped us! Our art was a seal called Timothy. He is really wacky. It was really fun making him. He is a spotted helicopter seal. We called him that because we stuck measuring cups to his head and they look like rotors on a helicopter. We stuck bits of egg cartons to the bottom of the picture for seaweed. We drew swirls in chalk. We also used lego pieces that are stuck on as well.

Finally, we learned some good news. Humpback whales are no longer endangered. A great white shark fitted with a GPS tracker drew a self portrait. An Irish man rowed for 112 days to cross the Atlantic. Seagrass has regrown in a load of places. A lot more areas in the ocean are going to be protected. Basking sharks are protected in Irish waters.

I had a very fun day!

December- Winter Fair- Victoria and Mia

February - April

We worked in our classes on projects for the Ocean Champions Award. Each class focused on a different topic.

1st and 2nd Class- Green Schools SeaKeepers Program

3rd- Estuarine Biodiversity

4th- Green Tourism

5th- The History of the Shannon Estuary- 5th class made a fantastic short film!

6th- Birds of the Shannon/Squid

April- Marine Week

We took part in the annual Marine Week held by Green Schools. We got to take part in many exciting activities such as talks from Seal Rescue Ireland and marine art workshops.

Marine Explorers came in to 5th and 6th and taught them all about squid! They even got to take part in a squid dissection!

Then we had our show and tell in the halla and the parents were invited to see our brilliant work!

Presentation Greenschools by Lilliana

May- Seashore Safari

June- Green Schools Beach Workshop

First class were so lucky to win a trip to Lahinch from Green Schools from our entry into the SeaKeepers program.