St Vincent’s students design a sensory garden to reduce urban heat

A new sensory garden at St Vincent’s Secondary School, Dundalk, provides an oasis of calm for students and teachers as well as reducing urban heat and supporting wildlife.

The development of the sensory garden at Seatown Place began in March 2023 when students from the 3 Plunkett geography class, under the guidance of Ms O’ Hagan, joined Globe Ireland’s ‘How cool is your school’ initiative.

This programme involved measuring different surface temperatures to determine how they can lead to increased or decreased surface heating on the school campus.

The basic principle underlying Urban Heat islands and increased surface temperature is that towns and cities are becoming hotter places not just because of the weather but because of the materials that make up the urban landscape, most notably concrete and tarmac. These surface types increase the feeling of heat and lead to the formation of urban heat islands.

With increasing global temperatures, urban areas are at greater risk of becoming less comfortable for human activity during summer months or warm weather events.

Through their involvement with the project students learned that there are simple ways of reducing this effect by introducing nature-based solutions. Through the development of more green spaces such as urban gardens, wall planters, mini ponds, rainwater gardens, water features and white surfaces, the urban heat island effect is reduced.

Armed with that knowledge, the students designed a nature-based garden for St Vincent’s school.

In designing the garden, the students aimed to create a space that would provide a comfortable area for the school community not just in times of hot weather but all year round. The design aimed to incorporate nature-based solutions as well as improve biodiversity and create a calming space for the whole school community to enjoy.

This design won the students €500 in Caro funding. Staff supported the students idea and formed a sensory garden committee to work on making the students’ idea a reality. The sensory garden was planned developed and planted over the summer months by a dedicated team of school staff led by the school caretaker Mr Paul O’Neil and Ms Wallace. The local business community supported the idea and 51 business sponsored the development of the sensory garden. Their support was vital to the project and the St Vincent’s school community is very grateful for their support.

The garden now includes native plants, trees, and flowers, a waterfall, a bee and bug hotel, a fully planted rooftop wildflower garden, and a very recently created wilderness gallery. A wall mural depicting the Children of Lir story was painted by the artist Fio Silva. The created garden provides a calming and inspiring space for students and teachers to enjoy for many years to come.