Two groups of students from Mary Immaculate were successful in being invited to present their project at the National Finals of the Young Environmentalist competition held in the Convention Centre in Dublin on Thursday 23 May 2019.
Our Senior group, guided by teacher John Sims, entered a project on 'Creating a Wellbeing garden in our School'. This was in the Category titled "ECO-HEALTH and Well-being" which had 9 projects.
The students project was 'to create a well-being green area in our school because there was no green space available in our school. We really felt that young people should be given a space where they can relax surrounded by nature. We are an inclusive and caring school and we felt that it is important to recognise this by creating the well being area. We created a tiled mosaic and painted scenery from our local burren area onto the walls. We built raised planters in which we planted serveral different flowers and plants. We also planted aherb boxes and worked with the Home Economics teacher on the use of the the herbs we are growing. We have benches for people to sit on. We feel it is important to have somewhere that is positive, encouraging and life giving. It is putting into action the call from Pope Francis in his letter to each of us in LAUDATU SI or PRAISE BE TO YOU on Care for our Common Home."
Our Junior group, guided by teacher Maggie Garrihy, entered a project in the category Climate Change. There were 40 projects in this category and our Junior group won their category with their project titled "Communicating Climate Change" The students investigated the effects of climate change in North Clare. They went on to explain "There is a lot of media coverage about climate change globally, we wanted to gather evidence from experts working in the field of climate change and relate this to our local area. We collected videos of the extreme weather experienced. We invited a guest climatology expert from Met Éireann Seamus Walsh who explained the state of Ireland's climate and the impacts of climate change for Ireland. Pat Cronin, an archaeologist told us of a discovery of a submerged coastal cave with stalagmites and stalactites which he and his team had dated to help estimate the rate of sea level rise locally. We interviewed a Burren Beo representative who made suggestions on how farmers could cut down on their carbon footprint and adapt to adverse weather. We commissioned a 3D map of Clare to allow us to visualise coastal areas which may be negatively impacted by sea level rise to the end of this century. We have made a video together about climate change in North Clare. See link below. We will be hosting a gallery event in the Pavilion Theatre Lisdoonvarna on the 24th May. This event will coincide with the Global Climate Action Day and all of our fellow students are marching from our school to the Pavilion raising awareness of the necessity of Climate Action NOW. We hope to make the issue of climate change more relevant to the people of North Clare".
Click Here for You Tube link to students video on Communicating Climate Action