Green Flag

Action Plan 2010/11

Aims

This year the main aim is to maintain our energy flag and to begin work on our third flag, water. Also we would like to continue with our other environmental commitments. The school initially had a post of responsibility linked to the environment but with the budget cut backs this position was lost. At the beginning of this year Ms. Sinead O'Reilly was appointed the Environment officer. In October 2010 Ms. O'Reilly went on maternity leave. The Eco Class in transition year, continued to do the work of the environment committee, these students have the job of creating a more environmentally aware school through continued class work and projects.

Objectives

To begin work on a rundown area of our school and to work with a n outside group called friends of the forest, who will help us to plant a bio diverse garden to help us to understand the importance of biodiversity, particularly when living in a city.

To hold a day of action in our school as the first step in getting our next green schools flag.

To begin a project which will continue on into next year that will promote water conservation in our wider community as well as in our school.

September 2009	Set up Eco Class and the Environment Committee. Due to the changes in our system the eco class will be given on rotation. Group one will work on the biodiversity garden. They will be working with Ms. Roche and with the Friends of the Forrest group until the 30th of November.Three days a week the group will go out weed and plant and garden. The area we picked is behind the gym and is very run down. There is a container there used for storage for the school and it has been lit on fire a few times. We would like to the girls to clean it up and paint the sides of the container to improve our environment, this project will then be entered into the YEA competition.	Class 4.3 Ms. Roche Ms. O'Reilly Friends of the Forest	The students began work by clearing the area nearest the gym but we were told a few weeks into this work that, that area would be where the new gym extension would be going. We moved our planned bio diverse gardens over to the other side of the container.
October 2010	Continue to work on the Bio Diverse garden and get the container painted. Order plants on line.	Class 4.3 Ms. Roche Ms. O'Reilly Friends of the Forest	The students painted the outside of the container. They planned their own gardens and went on line to www.gardens4u.ie and ordered the flowers and trees that they wanted. Each group had €50 to spend.
November 2010	Plant and complete the Bio diverse garden. Take photos and write up report for YEA and register for YEA.	Class 4.3 Ms. Roche Friends of the Forest	The group planted the trees shrubs and bulbs that they had ordered. They wrote up their projects. The third environmental group took over the maintenance of these gardens in February.
December 2010	Set up new environmental group. Explain our second objective; to hold a day of action. Set about assigning different tasks to smaller committees with in the group. Decide when our day of action is to be held. Register the group project for YEA Conduct a survey of the students to measure how water conscious they are. Re do this survey in next year to measure how much difference our work has done	Class 4.4 Ms. Roche BOM Mr. Curry Parents Council Representative
January 2011	Organise and promote all the different activities that will be held on Splash Day PowerPoint presentation Battery Bake Sale Water quiz with fish badge prize Plot and display results of the survey	Class 4.4 Ms. Roche BOM Mr. Curry Parents Council Representative	A lot of the hard work was completed in January. The students made the badges out of air drying fimo. This was a bad choice as they fell apart too easily.
February 2011	Hold Our day of action " Splash Day" on February 3^rd 2011 Have projects ready for the YEA and post all projects.	Class 4.4 Ms. Roche BOM Mr. Curry Parents Council Representative	Splash day was a great success. Every student in the school was allowed to attend, the cake sale was very popular and we collected three large boxes of batteries for recycling. The water song was also very popular. Both projects were copied and posted.
March 2011	Set up third and final environmental group. Introduce the final project title Begin preparations for writing and filming cartoon. Continue to maintain school garden and Bio diverse garden.	Class 4.5 Ms. Roche BOM Mr. Curry Parents Council Representative	A story line was decided on for our cartoon and the students began writing out a script. One day a week the students went out gardening
April 2011	Prepare for the Eco Den for the YEA competition Begin Filming cartoon Continue work on cartoon	Class 4.5 Ms. Roche BOM Mr. Curry Parents Council Representative	We were successful at the eco den and both our projects were selected to go forward in the competition. We began filming it was much slower than we had thought it would be and we began to realise that it would not be finished by the end of the year.
May 2011	Attend the YEA awards at Mansion House. Continue work on cartoon	Class 4.5 Ms. Roche BOM Mr. Curry Parents Council Representative	The groups won Highly commended for their efforts in the YEA awards. We did as much as we could on the cartoon and hope to continue it nest year.

Action Plan 2009/2010

Aims

This year the main aim is to achieve our energy flag and also to continue with our other environmental commitments. The school initially had a post of responsibility linked to the environment but, with the budget cut backs, this position was lost. The school then set up an Eco Studies class in transition year; these students have the job of creating a more environmentally aware school through continued class work and hands-on projects and campaigns.

Month	Action	Group	Outcome
Aug 2009	Application for DES Energy conservation grant submitted	Principal and BoM	Awaiting response
September 2009	Set up Eco Class and the Environment Committee. Assign each group with a task that they will look after for the year.	Class 4.3 and Class 4.4, Ms. Roche BoM Mr. Curry Parent Representative
	Begin Phone Recycling for Jack and Jill foundation.	Aisling Frier Lorna Melleady Aoife McLaughlin Rebecca Dunne	To date the group has collected 300 phones.
	Turn all the recycling bins into frogs	Heather O’Donoghue Amy McQuaid Laura White Jennifer Gormley	Frog bins are now in place but do need maintenance.
	Do a survey on who walks to school and present the results on eco day.	Lauren Dunne Rebecca Kinsella Katie Coffey Eimear Duff	The survey was taken and the group is promoting walking to school so that they can conserve energy.
	Conservation of energy in school group	Chloe Kidd Nicola Moore Rebecca Hanley Orla Conroy Katie Pringle Hazel Egan	This group have been putting up posters and highlighting the lights to conserve energy.
	Carbon foot print Group, calculate an average school footprint and try to reduce this figure over the year.	Aoife Courtney Aoife Daly Aideen Hughes Kirsten Jenkinson Laura Sewell	On Eco Day every student calculated their own carbon footprint count. Now they must redo the survey to prove they school has reduced its average carbon footprint number
	Battery Recycling, promoting awareness of battery recycling in the school and in the community.	Olivia Snyed Cayleen Tracy Fox Saoirse Redmond Jenny Boylan Rachel O’Beirne	They had a speaker in from WEEE Ireland who spoke about the need to do electrical recycling; he provided the school with 2 bins for 2 weeks to recycle all our electrical waste. The group took on the project to promote battery recycling.
	Growing a school garden	Sinéad Bergin Sinéad Toal Jessica Gunno Katie O’Shea	The group needed money so that they could buy seeds. They decided to do a stand on eco day where they would sell bags of sweets with an environmental fact attached. They made €50.
	Recycling Awareness Calculating amounts of recycling each week	Rebecca Beggs Heather Browne Ciara O’Brien Aoife Seery	Made a power point presentation on recycling, presented it on eco day. Began taking a record of recycling and bins in the school.
	Energy awareness through games and fun	Rebecca McMullan Caolan Lynch Carroll Rebecca McKeon Mary Brady Hannah Rafferty	They made the game and got the whole school to play. Now they are making a more robust model
	Recycling Game, to promote recycling in a memorable and fun way	Laura Booth Aidene Browne Caoimhe O’Connor Paula Mahon	The group made a feed the animal game and each student got a chance to play the game during Eco Day.
	Summer Works application for double glazed windows submitted	Principal and BoM	Awaiting word
October 2009	Eco Day Hold an environmental awareness day that will inform students of our plans to achieve the green flag	Class 4.3 and Class 4.4, Ms. Roche BoM Mr. Curry Parent Representative	Eco Day was a great success; we had two power point presentations and a guest speaker from the Jack and Jill association. Every student in the school took part in Eco Day.
November 2009	Write up reports on Eco Day and publish the results on the internet.	Class 4.3 and 4.4	The groups wrote individual reports on Eco Day. The students appeared in the Northside News paper, as a result of Eco Day.
	Prepare for the second energy audit and ensure that we have our heat and light monitors who will actively encourage students to turn off the lights and keep the doors closed in all class rooms and on the corridors
	Prepare applications for the YEA
December 2009	Conduct second energy audit.	Class 4.3 and Class 4.4, Ms. Roche BoM Mr. Curry Parent Rep	Energy Audit deferred
	Continue Recycling and start recording amounts of recycling produced, make a wall of shame and hopefully the numbers of students recycling will have improved as a result of our Eco Day.
	Begin to dig the garden and loosen the soil.		Garden dug in February due to weather conditions
January 2010	Compile the results of the second energy audit, present them as bar charts and publish them around the school.	Class 4.3 and Class 4.4, Ms. Roche BoM Mr. Curry Parent Rep	Energy audit results deferred until March
	Continue to dig and prepare the soil for growing vegetables in the school garden. Buy the potatoes and other vegetables and the leave the potatoes to chitt.
	Prepare projects for YEA		Work continued on all YEA projects
February 2010	Continue with all or our initiatives and promote recycling in the school.	Ms. Roche, Ms. Quinn, Damien Delaney, Sinead Bergin, Sinead Toale, Jessica Gunno,
	Plant potatoes, carrots, onions and year round lettuce		The group have dug and weeded the garden. They bought seeds using the money they made on Eco Day they planted the potatoes.
	Have projects ready for the YEA and post all projects	Eco class and Ms. Roche	All projects copied and posted.
March 2010	Continue recycling and hold the Easter raffle for mobile phone recycling.	Class 4.3 and Class 4.4, Ms. Roche BOM rep Parent rep	Raffle underway
	Continue to weed and care for the vegetable patch.
	Work on YEA projects and have presentations ready for after Easter.
	Carry out radiator audit	Volunteer comm.	Damien Delaney organized that a number of broken radiators were fixed.
	Carry out tap audit.	Volunteer comm.	Damien Delaney fixed a number of leaking taps.
	Use Seachtain na Gaeilge as an opportunity to promote environmental issues as Gaeilge.	1^st Yr classes with their Irish teachers	Poster campaign as Gaeilge underway.
	Green Flag lesson for every class in the school.	Ms. Grogan (contributions from Ms. Roche and volunteer comm.)	Students showed considerable awareness before the lesson of many of the campaigns and projects. Lesson provided a reminder about the Green Flag process and environmental issues.
	Energy Audit	Whole School	Results were compiled and displayed on the environmental noticeboard and school website.
	Radiator reflective foil for added insulation	Principal and BoM	Foil installation completed
*March 22^nd *	Green Flag renewal inspection	All staff and students
*March 22^nd *	Pre-Easter Whole School Clean-up	All staff and students
April 2010	Promote more walking/ cycling to school summer season. .	Class 4.3 and Class 4.4, Ms. Roche Ms. Grogan BoM Mr. Curry Parent Representative
	Continue to weed the garden and water if necessary
	Promote recycling batteries for the final term
May 2010	Present projects for the YEA	Class 4.3 and Class 4.4, Ms. Roche Ms. Grogan BoM Mr. Curry Parents Council Representative
	Begin to harvest first potatoes and lettuce and spring onions.
	Finish school year with big clean up and recycling drive.
	Pre-Summer Whole School clean-up	All staff and students
Summer 2010	Insulate Attic and Walls Install double glazed windows, if grant approved	Principal and BoM Principal and BoM (Summer Works)

The Environmental Audit
         Last term, the Environmental Committee began an Environmental Audit in our school. This is part of our work to obtain a new Green Schools Flag in the coming months. The Environmental Audit is a review of the use of energy in the school.
         Each class was appointed a heat monitor and a light monitor. Three times a day for a number of weeks, the light monitor filled out forms with regards how many bulbs were on, general weather report etc. The heat monitor also filled out forms three times a day. Every room in the school was given a thermometer and the heat monitor wrote down room temperature, whether or not doors and windows were open etc.
         The Environmental committee then typed up the information and created bar charts showing our results.This will give us a good basis for beginning our energy reducing process in the school.
         The Environmental Committee is already yielding good results and hopefully this work will get Dominicans closer to obtaining a new Green Schools Flag.

Energy Audit results 2009

Green flag

The School won the first green flag in 2007. That green flag was for recycling. Now we need to retain our green flag by reducing the amount of energy we use and also by recycling.

It is easy being green.

It’s just a matter of putting things in the right bin. With just a little combined effort our school will benefit a lot from this flag, as the County Council will collect our bins for free. This means the school can use the money for other things e.g. better facilities for sports or more technology for classrooms.To continue our campaign we need to have a day of action.

Eco Day Monday the 19^th of October
Our day of Action is being held on October the 19th 2009, we are holding an Eco day in the main school hall. Our environmental committee are organising this day with the help of the whole school. Each class is going to go to the hall on the day, they are going to be presented with a power point presentation on the Green flag, the seven steps that are laid out in order to achieve it and what we as a school intend to do so that we may keep our green flag. After the presentation the students may go around the hall where the committee will have stalls set up promoting energy conservation, recycling and environmental awarness through games and fun activities. The students decided this because it would be a fun and interesting way to get involved and to learn more about the environment.