‘Global Citizenship – Litter and Waste’ is the sixth Green-Schools theme. We will discover how Green-Schools work has positively influenced people and environments worldwide while revising the previous Litter and Waste theme.
To be awarded a green flag we follow a 7-step programme over 2 years.
Step 1. Form a Green schools committee.
In St Finian’s N.S. this is an elected team. In October 2019 children in each class from 1st to 6th put themselves forward for election. They prepared and delivered speeches to their class. We have secret ballots in each class. It is therefore a great achievement to be elected to the green team. The green team meets weekly with the teacher coordinator which for 2019/20 is Ms Maher. Ms Maher attended a presentation by Meath County council to identify what we need to do to be awarded the next green flag.
Step 2: Do an environmental review
In November and December 2019 the newly elected Green team went around the school and took photos of the types of litter.
We checked every single bin in the school to see if the items were being placed in the correct bin. The green team meet every week.
Step 3: Create an Action plan
We have started on our action plan. We identified the key sustainable development goals that link to our green school theme.
These are:
SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities
SDG 12 Responsible production and consumption
In January 2020 we informed all the teachers and children about what we found in the bins and on the yard.
A new rota for checking bins and litter picking has been created. The green team are helping to make sure litter picking and bin checks in each classroom are carried out each week.
We aim to:
- Reduce landfill waste.
- Put waste in the correct bins.
- Reduce single use plastic in the school.
- Learn about other places in Ireland and the world and how we are interconnected.
- Learn about the sustainable development goals.
Step 4: Monitor and Evaluate actions for all the green flags
The green team has identified that Litter and waste link to the other flags. For example lots of plastic waste has ended up in the oceans and is harmful to the animals that live in water. This links to the water and biodiversity themes. If we throw things away without using them properly we are wasting the water and energy used to make them. The green team think that a lot of litter on the roads in our community seems to be single use food and drink containers thrown from cars as they travel through the area.
We are very interested to identify if the biodiversity garden and the courtyard garden increase biodiversity even further this year. Growing your own food reduces the amount of transport used.
Step 5: Curriculum work on the theme of ‘Global citizenship – litter and waste’
At the end of January the theme of Catholic schools’ week was ‘Living in harmony with God’s creation’.
We had prayers at our prayer service about reducing waste, reducing the use of fossils fuels in transport and combating climate change.
1st and 2nd class will complete the Incredible edibles program which is all about understanding food and how food is grown, including issues around food waste. They have also learned about animals and habitats in Africa.
3rd and 4th class studied rainforest habitat and how rainforest in Malaysia and Indonesia which is habitat for chimpanzees is being cut down to produce palm oil.
Step 6: Inform and involve the whole school and the wider community
We held an art competition to create posters to remind us about the correct bins to use.
We plan to have action days for this theme as we have done for each of the Green school themes so far. These are fun days with a variety of activities to explore the theme for the whole school.
Step 7: Create a green code for the theme.
We will hold a competition at a later date for a new green code for this theme.