Green Flag award for biodiversity at Scoil Aonhgusa

FAMILIES can encourage sustainable living and change how they eat, live, use resources and impact on their environment, to help preserve and protect the world they live in. The pupils of Scoil Aonghusa are learning by example, both from their parents and also from their school, peers and teachers.

Educational environmental ethos is so very important in early education. Young children learn by example and can develop habits that will last a lifetime. They are eager and enthusiastic young minds who are innately interested in their world and willing without prejudice to accept new concepts and ideals.

Scoil Aonghusa C.N.S was awarded the Green Schools Achievement Award this year. The Green Schools is an international environmental education programme, environmental management system and award system that promotes and acknowledges long-term, whole school action for the environment.

Scoil Aonghusa was recently awarded the prestigious Green schools flag for the pupils work on biodiversity. The school now has five Green Flags and members of the pupil green schools committee received their biodiversity flag at an awards ceremony at the Radisson Hotel in Cork two weeks ago.

Led by their pupil committee, all the classes worked this year to preserve and protect biodiversity at home and around their school. Class projects included creating a bug hotel, making bird feeders, rearing oak tree seedlings and planting bulbs. Pupils, staff and families are also looking forward to developing a school garden and have just started a “no dig vegetable beds” project with the help of Marian Ward of the Learning Network Pathways Programme.

Green Schools Teaching Co-ordinator Stephanie Mulcahy recommended the programme and said “this was a wonderful experience for the children. They learned all about the local environment and how to preserve and protect it for their future, thus instilling environmental care and ethos in their community.”

If you would like more information on the Green Schools programme, which runs all over the world, visit https://greenschoolsireland.org.

Scoil Aonghusa was also awarded an SFI Discover Science and Maths Award for the 2018/2019 academic year. The school provided and facilitated an educational programme that increased pupils’ engagement with Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.