Christmas Fit on Friday - Walk to School

Awarded our 5th Green Flag!

We had a wonderful day of celebration for the raising of our 5th green flag for Biodiversity. It posed quite a challenge with out having a garden! however, the green school committee and Muinteoir Siobhan did not let that deter them and they created a wonderful roof-top garden! Muinteoir Aoife and some of our parents were a great help in getting the garden 'up' and 'running.' Muinteoir Rachel painted an amazing mural at the entrance. We are all very proud of our unique roof-top garden.

The Golden Boot Award for January 2012

Well done to all the boys and girls in Room 16 who won the Golden Boot Award for January 2012. Come on everybody for the month of February and the start of Spring let's get our walking shoes on!

Biodiversity Poster Competition

Our classes created fantastic posters to display their understanding of Biodiversity.
Well done to you all and especially to Room 14 who won the overall prize!

Last WOW Day of 2011!

We had great fun walking together for our last WOW Day of 2011. Thank you to all of our parents who continue to make WOW a success. Without your support we could not implement our WOW Day. The Green School Committee would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and see you back walking in 2012!

Congratulations to Room 7 who won the 'Golden Boot Award' for the month of December!

2011: New Green School Theme: Biodiversity

We have started to work on our new Green Schools Theme which is Biodeversity.
Biodiversity is the existence of the variety of all life forms on earth from the tiniest bugs living in the soil, to the butterflies in your garden, the plants they feed on and the biggest whales in the sea.

We are having a poster/banner competition to help raise awareness of Biodiversity in our school.
www.noticenature.ie has lots of useful information on Biodiversity. Check it out!

Fantastic WOW Participation and Slogans

"One, two, three, come walk with me" - Ciara Grealish, Room 16

"Wet or dry, we walk with joy" - Jane Francis, Room 16

"Walk to school is the Golden Rule" - Julia Leyden, Room 15

"Walk to school and just be cool" - Chelsea Ofoegbu, Room 15

"Stride with Pride" - Maeve Leyden, Room 12

"Be cool, walk to school, if you can't try to car pool" - Emiliya Stibe, Room 12

"You have legs you can use, so really you have no excuse" - Shaina Femn Alngohuro, Room 5

"Keep fit and don't delay, walk to school on WOW day" - Janet Olajide, Room 5

A great WOW Day

Congratulations to everyone for participating in our WOW days so far.
Let's keep it up and aim for 100% participation!

Walkability Audit

Walking to school with our friends is fun! We get exercise and some fresh air before we start our day at school. We also cut down on traffic congestion outside our school.

On Wednesday, 20th January 2010 the girls in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th classes walked some of the possible routes we might use for our "WOW" (Walk on Wednesday) Days. Their teachers, Múinteoir Helena and Múinteoir Anne with the help of some parents, Liam and Sherri, Tiernan, our travel co-ordinator and Múinteoir Siobhán, walked with separate groups of girls from four locations.

The locations were: Bohermore (17 minutes), the Claddagh (18 minutes), Seamus Quirke Road (20 minutes) and Tesco (13 minutes).

En route we noted if the footpaths were wide enough, that we had safe places to cross the road and if we thought it was an enjoyable route. We noted any hazards, for example uneven footpaths and vehicles parked on the paths.

CONGRATULATIONS!
Well done Eva and Fiona who won prizes for their entries in the Environment Calendar Art Competition. We hope you enjoy the calendar and remember to keep Galway clean.

Green School Committee: September 2009

Green News

We held elections in school and the following students have been elected onto our Green Schools Committee:

Tony Scully, Crisabel David
Whitney Ward, Laoise Kelly Mc Guire
Jamylah Folan, Arina Kavanagh
Daniel Go, Priscilla Tshabalola

We will be working on the theme of TRAVEL this year.

We will be thinking about the different ways we travel to school and maybe we could improve them by walking ,cycling, carpooling with friends or by taking the bus.
Don’t forget that October is International Walk to School Month so put on your walking shoes and get fit!

WATER

A sample of some of our projects and artwork that we completed in our school.

The photo below shows our water barrel which is located in our school yard. Here, we collect rain water and we have used this water to take care of our plants in our 'Incredible Edible' project thus conserving water!

In February 2009 we received our third green flag for water conservation. Our whole school community worked hard to achieve this award. All toilets were fitted with a green button that allows for a quick/half flush and all our taps are self closing. We got a water barrel fitted to a drainpipe to collect rainwater to water our plants.

Energy Awareness

ENERGY

In 2007 we were awarded our green flag for energy.

We held a very successful “switch it off” campaign in school and we continue to save energy by switching off lights and electrical equipment when they are not needed and never leaving our computers on standby. The pupils took daily meter readings in the morning and afternoon to calculate how many units of electricity we used while in school. They recorded their results and this gave us great incentive to reduce our energy use. In Maths class they calculated our daily, weekly, monthly electricity costs and displayed their results graphically. We had a Low Energy Friday to help raise energy awareness in our school and were delighted that we had beaten our previous lowest unit consumption.

Mayor Niall O Brolchain presented our green flag for energy at a ceremony in the Galway Bay Hotel .


GREEN SCHOOLS

The green-schools programme plays an important part in daily life in Scoil an Linbh Íosa. Our pupils, staff and parents are very involved in looking after the environment in school and in our local community.

LITTER AND WASTE

Every effort is made to reuse, reduce and recycle school waste and we were awarded our green flag for Litter and Wastein 2005. Everyone was very excited the day we got our flag. We had a visit from Mayor Catherine Connolly and every class performed a song about litter and waste on the stage. The girls in 5th and 6th class had made costumes from various recycled materials in a Recycled Costume Making workshop with Solas Community Arts Group and treated us to a hilarious fashion show! We also had a visit from the Galway Independent newspaper.
All senior classes attended “Recycling the Magical Way” by Magician Marvin in the Town Hall Theatre and enjoyed the show.