ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards 2018
Climate Change - Senior Bin There, Done That!
Meat: The Only Option?
Loreto Secondary School Bray, Wicklow
Ballinteer Community School, Dublin
Our project is about trying to combat climate change by reducing our carbon footprint. We were truly taken aback by the fact that our school didn’t have any recycling facilities and we wanted to make a change. We had three main goals: obtain recycling bins for our school, spread awareness about this issue to all members of our school community and reduce our carbon footprint. Collectively, we took a number of actions - from sorting through rubbish in our school, to handing out surveys and holding a poster competition for first years. As a result of our project, we’ll now be able to obtain recycling bins for our school due to funding from the Board of Management.
Emily McQuillan; Hannah Leonard; Jenny Salmon; Ciara Slattery
The Other Oil Spill
ECO-UNESCO Youth for Sustainable Development Programme, Dublin
Palm oil production is largely responsible for the destruction of what remains of our rain forests, so for our project, we thought it would be useful to raise awareness of this problem in our school community. We achieved this by holding a lunch time presentation where we showed students alternative products that don’t contain palm oil, and we believe that this will encourage them to re-consider purchasing products that utilise palm oil.
Newpark Comprehensive School, Dublin
There’s a strong relationship between climate change and meat consumption, and we wanted to highlight this with our YEA project. We did our research and organised a ‘Green Day’ where students tried vegetarian food, learned about the positive impacts the diet can have on the environment and planted vegetables in the school garden. The day was publicised in the Dundrum Gazette, and our canteen is now considering a Vegetarian Day every week.
Education’s Lacking Let’s Get Cracking
Abbey Community College, Waterford
New Park School - Plastic Outta the Park
Keela Doyle; Cian Conway; James Murtagh; Donal Howard
Nuno Camelo; Killian Wilson; Hana Mohamed; James Potter; Nele Groteclaes; Jaime Camacho; Gemma Canals Soteras; Nele Groteclaes; Lua Pallares Alonso; Laura Sanchez Del Rio; Filip Waszkiewicz; Segundo Gonzalez; Rubén Morueco Pena; Alba Saez de Jauregui; Doyle Conor; Ana Castillo-Serrano; Angela Ruiz-Alvarez; Alvaro Serrano-Torralbo
We want to introduce learning about sustainable development and climate change to the Irish learning system on a permanent basis. Our group felt rather strongly about the lack of education that is available to most Irish students on this topic. If we don’t introduce a common programme of learning now - how will any of us learn to look after our planet properly? We raised awareness of our campaign by holding a demonstration, conducting a survey, speaking with the general public about our ideas and creating a social media campaign. Eimear Panoho; Aisling McEvoy; Aisling Young; Ruairi Moore; Lily Ní Dhrisceoil; Eve Mc Sweeney
Here at Newpark, we’ve always tried to have promote a progressive school community and for us, the next natural step in that journey was raising awareness of the blight of single-use plastic on our school grounds. We did this by holding a very successful awareness event where students performed and resuable water bottles were sold. We also made a video of the event, which will serve to raise further awareness on the matter going forward.
Climate Change - Junior Trees for Life on Earth
Loreto College Swords, Dublin Cian Mac Aonghusa; Nathan Moore; Rowan Wall; Caia Murdock; Edoardo Nestor; Cillian Kerskens,Sydney Levene; Mia Knowles; Oscar Meagher; Liza Kurevleva; Constantine Lordanov; Maya Baum; Oisin O’Kelly
Fridge Free Freshness
Moate Community School, Westmeath Modern society sends far too much food waste to landfill, so our group wanted to do something that might counteract this issue. The aim of our project was to design a food storage container that would slow down the process of ripening in fruit and vegetables, without the requirement for electricity. Our task then, was to create an anti-microbial environment that ensure a longer life for fruit and vegetables. We tested out various methods of food storage in order to identify the ideal conditions for inhibiting food spoilage, and we feel that this research will be particularly beneficial in developing countries.
Trees provide us with oxygen, help us breathe clean air, and tact as ‘carbon sinks’. With these facts in mind, we decided to get more trees planted in our own school and local area. To raise funds, we held a fundraiser concert and cake sale. This year is the thirtieth anniversary of our school, and in honour of the occasion we planted thirty new rowan trees. We bought sixty-five seeds in total and the other thirty-five trees will be planted in our community. Additionally, we also created a dramatic performance about deforestation and hosted an exhibition on the importance of trees in the fight against global warming. Mia Alwell; Elise Ashby; Ella Barron; Lucia Brown; Hannah Caine; Abbey Colgan; Hannah Dolan; Lauren Dunne; Chloe Elliott; Lucy Fagan; Emily-Jane Fallon; Abi Hickey; Ericka Higgins; Holly Irwin; Aoife Kavanagh; Olivia Kelly; Ava Kerin; Aoife Masterson; Lily Mc Carthy; HannahMc Sweeney; Amy Meates; Jessica Mongey; Clodagh Murray; Katie O”Brien; Orla O’Mara; Christine Olapido; Katie Preston; Layla Ren; Maeve Rudisteanu; Emily Ryan
Jack O’Donovan; Thérèse Hamm
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