Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi Caitlin, this is a great example of a school maximising a local public space to overcome physical footprint limitations. It is fantastic to see how you have integrated Belgrave Park into your school day.
Your practical initiatives are great to hear about. I particularly like the way that ye frequently have items based on sustainability in our monthly newsletter. This is something I’m going to suggest that we do in our own school. Reaching your 8th Green Flag is an incredible achievement.
Our school is located in a large, suburban developing area of Limerick. Our local environment benefits greatly from the large green space of Castletroy Park, which serves as a vital hub for biodiversity and community well-being. In our locality we also have the Castletroy Urban Greenway, encouraging active travel like walking and cycling to reduce our local carbon footprint. As a school we also encourage our pupils to scoot/bike or walk to school daily.
Our School has proudly achieved five Green Flags through the An Taisce Green-Schools programme, demonstrating a long-standing commitment to litter and waste reduction, energy efficiency, water conservation, sustainable travel, and biodiversity.
Younger pupils take part in the Picker Pals environmental programme, utilising the character-led learning materials and taking turns bringing the “Picker Pack” home so students can lead litter picks with their families. We also take part in the Team Limerick Clean-Up initiative, where pupils join thousands of volunteers across the county to clean our school grounds and the local neighbourhood.
Other ways that we could encourage our pupils to engage with sustainability in our local area could be to get the students to embark on active community exploration by walking the Castletroy Urban Greenway to study sustainable transport infrastructure in action. We could also visit Castletroy Park where pupils would use identification apps to log local wildlife species and collect litter data to design community awareness posters. Finally, back in the classroom, students could engage in upcycling workshops using clean household waste, act as daily energy monitors to turn off electronics, and maintain local food journals to track food miles, preparing them to tackle our next renewal theme of Global Citizenship.Hi Laura, I completely agree that our understanding of seafood nutrition has come a long way since we were in school.
I love your fabric and fibre healthy food plates activity. Adding fabric fish and prawns next year will be a brilliant, hands-on way to introduce sustainable aquaculture to the younger classes.Learning about seafood nutrition has shown me great ways to integrate health, nutrition, and environmental awareness into my 3rd Class classroom. Seafood is packed with nutrients that help young bodies grow. For eight and nine-year-olds, I can explain these benefits in a very simple way. Learning about macro and micronutrients highlights how vital seafood is for growing bodies. For students, understanding specific benefits—like Omega-3 acting as “brain food” for concentration, or Vitamin D and Iron building strong bones and providing energy—makes healthy eating tangible. This fits perfectly into our SPHE lessons about taking care of our bodies.
To make it fun, we could do the supermarket “Eye Spy” activity. I could bring in clean, empty seafood clean packaging from home. The children will look at the nutrition labels to compare the protein amounts and find the country of origin. They will also hunt for special eco-friendly stamps like the MSC and ASC logos. This project ties healthy eating to real life. It helps kids make smart choices for their school lunches and teaches them to respect Irish sea life.
Another fun cross curricular activity (Maths and SPHE) we could do is to get the students to track their own healthy food choices over a week using a visual pyramid. This would encourage discussions at home about seafood and its importance in the food pyramid.Hi Noreen, I completely agree about the value of the ARC resources for driving meaningful, inquiry-based STEM learning. Our students have access to individual chromebooks, and I can see myself using these to facilitate the students to independently navigate the ARC modules and interactive quizzes directly through Google Classroom, which really builds their digital literacy and critical thinking skills.
I love that your 6th class took part in Bleaist Eolaíochta. It looks to be a brilliant initiative. I’m definitely going to look into this next year.As a 3rd class teacher, I can see myself using the ARC online lessons to create an interactive, hands-on STEM learning experience in my classroom. The lessons are put together in a child friendly way and can be easily integrated into google classroom.
I plan to adapt Lesson One to introduce the concept of fish farming through our SESE Science curriculum under the ‘Living Things’ strand, allowing students to explore aquatic life and ecosystems. For Lesson Two, I will integrate Mathematics and SPHE by having the children read seafood nutrition labels, create simple bar graphs of vitamins, and discuss healthy food choices. Lessons Three and Four will be used to target Environmental Awareness and Care in Geography, challenging the class to think about how Irish coastal communities protect marine life.
By engaging in these lessons, my class will develop essential skills like cooperative problem-solving, critical thinking, and digital literacy through the interactive quizzes.Hi Caoimhe, It is so easy for all of us to take our everyday local landscapes for granted, but bringing your own coastal perspective into an inland classroom is a great approach. Using a river the children already know is a great local hook because it makes abstract concepts like water catchment and water quality instantly real and relatable for them.
I see great value in exploring where our food comes from with students. Ireland’s western Atlantic coastline is ideal for aquaculture because of its unique physical geography. While the west coast is very mountainous with poor soil quality—making traditional farming difficult—its natural bays and inlets offer fantastic shelter for aquafarming. Thanks to the warm Gulf Stream, our coast benefits from a mild climate without extreme weather. This environment provides perfect habitats for a variety of seafood. Students can easily explore these habitats, from Pacific Rock Oysters on flat shorelines to salmon and mussels in deeper waters.
Socio-economically, fish and shellfish farming acts as a vital lifeline for our remote coastal communities. In regions where typical jobs are scarce, aquaculture provides steady, year-round employment for local families. It supports local logistics, boat maintenance, and engineering businesses. Teaching our pupils about this industry helps them understand how coastal towns adapt to their local environment. It helps them see how communities build a sustainable, globally recognised food industry right on their doorstep.Hi Amy, I completely agree with your point about sowing the seeds of sustainability from a young age. I also think the Young Chef Ambassador project is a fantastic initiative—it connects the hard work of local producers directly to future culinary talents.
As a teacher in a large urban inland school, the majority of my 3rd-class students have very little personal connection to the marine environment or awareness of where seafood originates. Introducing tools like the ARC provides an invaluable, immersive window into a coastal world they rarely experience firsthand. The interactive, cinematic nature of the mobile classroom is perfect for capturing the imagination and interest of older students.
Connecting aquaculture to the children’s geography, science and SPHE/nutrition lessons empowers them to see themselves as responsible global citizens, building a meaningful link to the sea despite living inland.That’s a great research question, and I really like how you’re making it personal and hands-on for the pupils. Using satellite images and going outside to explore the local area will definitely keep them engaged. The idea of comparing temperatures in different spots is really clever and helps make the learning real. Sharing the results on Seesaw is a lovely way to involve the wider school community too. It sounds like a project that the children will really enjoy.
Research Question:
‘How has the weather in our school area changed over the last 10 years, and what can we do to help the planet?’
Class: 3rd class
We would start with a class discussion about the weather—what they have noticed, any unusual patterns (like more rainy days, very hot summers, or unexpected snow), and how this makes them feel. Using local weather data (from Met Éireann), we would look for simple patterns and changes over time.
I would include activities that are hands-on and collaborative. The pupils would work in small groups to create weather charts, conduct surveys at home, or interview older family members about what the weather was like when they were younger. We would also include art and writing tasks—such as drawing “weather in the future” or writing a letter to the Earth.
By linking the research to real life and allowing the class to explore through play, talk, and creativity, they will hopefully stay engaged and feel their input matters.The EO Browser sounds great for using with the class, and it’s great how you’re thinking of using it to connect lessons to real-life changes in the local area. It sounds like a useful way to bring geography and environmental topics to life for students. Linking it to STEM work with TUD is a nice idea too.
Activity 1: I downloaded Satellite tracker and ISS tracker. I also used different websites such as heavens-above.com and n2yo.com. I didn’t use Orbitrack as there was a cost involved with downloading it. These websites are great and can be used in different ways in the classroom. These are some activities I plan to do with my class next year using these apps and websites:
– Track when satellites will pass over Ireland and let pupils spot them.
-Assign groups a satellite to learn its purpose (research project)
-Create posters or mini-reports explaining each satellite’s mission and what it monitors.Five satellites that have passed Ireland recently:
1.Starlink- Aimed at providing global broadband internet coverage via a constellation in low Earth orbit.
2.Landsat 9 -Used for Earth observation—mapping land surface changes and monitoring climate and environmental trends globally.
3. EIRSAT 1 -Carries three experiments: gamma-ray detection, thermal coating tests, and magnetic attitude control. It provides hands-on space science experience for students and data collection from orbit.
4. Sentinel 1C – Used for monitoring land use, water levels, environmental changes, and disaster response.
5.Sentinel 6 Michael Freilich -Tracks very precise sea surface heights to monitor sea-level rise, waves, and ocean wind speed.Setting a calm, reflective tone is such a great way to help pupils engage with the film’s powerful visuals and messages. The follow-up project work sounds engaging. Letting the pupils express what they’ve learned through posters, presentations or short videos gives them ownership of the message. The cross-curricular links you’ve made—especially with Geography, Science, and SPHE—are spot on and will really help reinforce the key messages of the film in a meaningful and lasting way.