A MASSIVE well done and congratulations to all our pupils, but especially the Green School Committee for their tremendous effort and achievement in obtaining our 8th Green School flag for Global Citizenship and Marine Environment.
Thank you Maxx, Laura, Zachary, John, Ruby Mae, Riagan, Paddy, Callum, Aoife and Arya...we are so proud of you all! To our 6th class committee members, you will be missed very much here but we know you will continue to be fantastic stewards of the environment in your next adventure! A big thanks to Mr. Cousins and all the staff and parents also for your support. In particular, to Marianne Byrne, for her dedication and passion to the students-we are indebted to you. Ms. Holman.
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A HUGE well done to all that took part in our Ocean Explorer's Program but especially to the Green School Committee for spearheading the project.
After weeks of planning and making, the committee finally got to present our finished project to the school. The project is called 'What's Thought is Caught' - a play on the phrase 'What's taught is caught' - which is advice that one of our committee members would often hear at home. We loved the idea of using the visual of something being caught as it ties in nicely with our marine theme. Our project started off with a visit from the program's outreach officer, Eoin McMahon, who helped to coordinate a visit to the beach with senior classes. The purpose of this visit was to gather, sort and classify marine litter and learn about marine life also. Students brought the litter back to school and we set about creating an aim and plan for our project. We wanted to create a piece of work that inspired everyone to keep their beaches tidy and create awareness around our interdependency on the marine environment. Students brainstormed ideas and we decided on creating a dual beach picture-one side clean and tidy (the way it should be!) and the other full of rubbish (everything we had found on the beach). We decided to attach a brain in the centre and work on the slogan. The brain has a net attached and is catching all the litter, preventing it from polluting the other side of the beach. The idea is that our thoughts are linked to our actions. If we change the way we think, we can achieve anything! Our thoughts lead to feelings, feelings lead to actions and actions lead to results! We want the result of our thoughts to be a safer, cleaner and happier marine environment for all! The Green School Committee would like to challenge you to do a 2 minute beach clean as often as you can! Take a bag and some gloves and a litter picker and set a timer on your phone-you will be surprised on what a difference you can make! We would love to see some photos from your visits so please send them to our school email or msholman.ourladysislandns@gmail.com and we will include them on the website! How many marine species can you name in the above photo? Be honest! We had difficulty naming a few-especially numbers 5 through 8! Well, our junior classes recently took part in the Seakeeper's Life Below Water workshops and set out on a mission to identify as many as possible and learn a few interesting facts along the way about the species and the marine environment. Class teachers covered a series of 12 lessons that covered everything from seaweed to whales and some information about environmental threats such as microplastics and climate change. We learned that: 1 = humpback whale 2 = basking shark 3 = oyster catcher 4 = puffin 5 = cockles 6 = barnacles 7= bladderwrack 8 = coral 9 = mackerel 10 = salmon 11 = otter 12 = grey seal A random selection of 10 students completed our before and after survey and we found that there was a nice improvement overall in our knowledge of marine species! Well done to everyone who took part! A HUGE well done and thank you to our Green
School committee members: Maxx; Zachary; Laura; John; Aoife; Ruby; Arya; Riagan; Callum and Paddy who have shown great dedication and effort towards achieving our Green Flag for Global Citizenship and Marine Environment. They have always worked hard, shown respect towards each other and worked as a team-we are so proud of them. We also must say a massive thank you to parents for helping foster interest in your children, and in particular, Marianne Byrne, for going above and beyond for our school. She is truly an inspiration in her dedication and passion in the way she supports our students with their green-fingered endeavors. Thanks also to Mr. Cousins and the teachers in Scoil Mhuire, who have delivered important lessons to support our theme of Global Citizenship and Marine Environment. Earning a Green School Flag is most certainly a team effort and we couldn't do it without the support of everyone within the school community. Ms. Holman. A huge well done and congratulations to all of the students who took part in National Bike Week. We had a great response overall and hope to build on this next year.
We had a mix of students cycling and scooting to school or taking their bike for a spin in the evenings and it was great to see the hi-vis and helmets in use! Thanks to everyone for supporting and encouraging your child this week. A big shoutout to Ms. Gaul's Junior and Senior Infants class for being the most enthusiastic cyclists this week! Ms. H. We are currently planning something big for our Ocean Explorer's Project! Stay tuned for the big reveal! How amazing are these?
Zachary, Georgia and T.J. created these beautiful bee hotels over the weekend-what a treat for the bees! I have heard whispers that they offer lodgings on a 'room only' basis but the rates are very competitive. Well done to Zachary, Georgia and T.J.-we are excited to see how many bees they will attract to our blossoming garden! Ms. H. A big thanks to all those who bought the window boxes and plants from our Budding Gardeners last Friday. A total of €172 was raised.
This money will go towards our school garden. A special word of thanks must go to Maryanne Costello for all the tireless work that she does, and the level of detail and care that she puts in every week to make our garden a special place for all our students. Our 4th, 5th & 6th classes are taking part in Explorers Education Programme as part of our Action Day.
The Explorers Education Programme engages with primary school children, it delivers ocean literacy to primary schools, promoting awareness, knowledge and engagement of our ocean wealth and identity. The programme is funded by Marine Institute, Ireland's state agency for marine research, technology development and innovation. The Green School Committee and 5th and 6th class got their hands a little dirty this week and created their very own seed bombs for the garden! We are so thankful to Marianne who organised this fun and educational activity. The class were divided into groups and each had to mix their ingredients to make a seed bomb. Each group needed: soil, seeds and chalk. Clay water was used to bind the ingredients together and make the perfect consistency for rolling. Each ball was placed in an egg tray coated with sand to prevent them from sticking. Finally, chalk was placed on top to add colour. They are ready to sow (or throw!) and we can't wait to see a big burst of colour in our school next season! Afterwards, students completed a mindfulness activity and painted stones for the garden beds with positive words, inspired by their time outside. Well done to our students and thanks again to Marianne for the huge effort she makes each and every week for our students and school. |
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