Ballindaggin pupils in running for national environmental award
THE pupils in St Colman’s National School in Ballindaggin are in the running for a major national award as a result of their work promoting environmental awareness.
Three groups from the school have qualified for the semi-finals of this year’s Eco Unesco Young Environmentalist Awards.
The pupils will travel to Dublin today to participate in the semi-final.
As part of their overall work in promoting environmental awareness the school held a special in-house promotion day during which the pupils from the three groups undertook a number of initiatives in the school and made presentations to their fellow pupils highlighting their project work to-date.
The three groups involved are: Cup Alert; Wild Flower Girls, and Save a bit, Start to Switch.
The Cup Alert group is promoting the use of recyclable coffee cups and a decrease in the use of single-use cups.
The pupils, who are all 5th and 6th class students, contacted local shops about their promotion and put up posters to encourage the general public to use recyclable cups.
They also went back to the shops to compile data on the affect of their campaign and the results of that research will form part of their presentation at today’s semi final.
The Wild Flower Girls have focused their attention on biodiversity and made up packets of wild flower seeds which they gave out to parents to encourage them to sow them in their gardens at home.
The pupils also contacted their local village committee asking for a wild flower garden to be included in the local playground.
School principal, Conor McDonald, said there was great excitement ahead of the trip to Dublin.
‘ The pupils have worked very hard on their projects and we’re hoping they will make it through to the final,’ he said.
He praised the work of teacher, Aisling Whitty, describing her as ‘ the driving force’ behind the school projects for the last number of years.
‘ The pupils approached me asking for a wild flower garden to be developed in the school,’ he said.
‘All three groups are very serious about what they’re trying to promote,’ he added.
The Wild Flower Girls also approached a local garden centre and asked them to give their seed packets to anyone who spends €25 in their shop.
They also contacted the local authority in Enniscorthy asking for roundabouts and road verges to be left ‘grow a bit wild’.
The Save a Bit, Start to Switch group decided to look at global warming and in particular campaigned to encourage parents to think about buying hybrid cars or fully electric vehicles.
‘ They surveyed the parent body and are making a graph of their findings which will form part of their presentation in Dublin,’ said Mr McDonald.
The national final of the competition will take place on May 23 at the National Convention Centre in Dublin.
During their trip the pupils will visit the National History Museum before making their way to Europe House where they will make their presentations to the adjudicators.