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The impact of climate change and global warming on my local area can be seen in the increased frequency of weather events and patterns that used to be unusual. Recent summers have flip flopped between intense heat waves and hot, rainy periods. Winter has been very mild with occasional short cold snaps. The different flowers and birds to be seen at the ‘wrong’ time of year has been very noticeable in the last year in particular.
As regards actions to be taken in school to slow down climate change and make this world a better place:
– Bike to school/walking bus/facilitating shared lifts to school where needed. These initiatives reduce the use of fossil fuel and emissions from individual parents driving their children to school.
– Gardening: children learn about our reliance on the earth and nature.
– Reduce electricity: turning off unnecessary lights, turn off devices when not in use etc.
– Recycling bins in all classrooms.
Hi Orla, a Junk Kouture project is a great idea, I have only seen this at secondary school level but it would be a very creative and enjoyable project for primary school children which would offer so many teaching moments about the impact of pollution and litter on the local community and the world.
While researching organisations that work with refugees and asylum seekers in my area, I came across the Dun Laoghaire Refugee Project.
The Dun Laoghaire Refugee project was founded in 2001 and is an entirely volunteer run organisation. The organisation currently has 13 volunteers. They run weekly drop in centres every Monday evening. At these drop in centres, the volunteers aim to provide asylum seekers with practical advice and information, particularly around the education system in Ireland, friendship and emotional support. Where they can, the Dun Laoghaire Refugee Project also provides practical help through funding for course administrative fees and transport for students. They remain in regular contact with students they work with to help provide them with support they may need to complete their studies.
To support asylum seekers and refugees in the area and help them to feel welcome and supported, my school could work with the Dun Laoghaire Refugee Project to include more children from outside the immediate school community in afterschool clubs and camps to foster friendships and cultural exchange.
Hi Orla, your story of that 6th class child is very moving. I am so glad he found a welcoming and safe foster family and school after his incredibly traumatic experience.
I think that climate change is an issue that definitely affects children at both a local level and a global level.
At a local level, I am based near the coast and pollution levels in the water frequently limit the children’s access. Plastic litter on the beaches is often to be seen and children also see this in their daily lives.
On a global level, children are aware of the increase in extreme weather events.
In schools, younger classes can work on protecting biodiversity and ecosystems on their school grounds or local area through litter picking, creating a biodiversity garden, pond/insect hotel etc.
As children get older, they can come to understand how climate change relates to other global development goals. Group research projects are empowering and useful in older classes. A green committee in the school gives children an opportunity to work with their peers and teachers to improve school efforts to combat climate change.
Hi Orla,I found your comment really helpful, it’s great to see how many possible local action ideas there are.
Marcella you raise a great point about drama and the roles children are willing to play. I have found that it helped for me to play different genders and roles as teacher in role and asking questions when children protested this helped to improve this in the past.
I taught Junior Infants last year for the first time and was surprised by how fixed and traditional many of the children’s views of gender were.
I first noticed this during informal whole-class games, when the children would quickly try to make a competition of boys against girls. This would also happen at yard time, where most children stayed in same gender groups while playing. I discussed this with the class with the help of picture books continuously throughout the year.
I also saw that gender impacted perception of a child’s behaviour. When boys played roughly on the yard or resorted to grabbing or pushing during conflicts, parents generally accepted that this was quite normal behaviour among small children, although discouraged. However, when individuals girls in the class displayed the same behaviour, I found that adults were much quicker to criticise the child.
Children would frequently make statements and generalisations about gender in the context of toys and interests. For example, that girls like dolls, boys like lego, a coat with dinosaurs on it was for a boy etc.
I also noticed that many of the Irish language resources available for Junior Infants in a gaelscoil reinforced and taught traditional gender roles and stereotypes in their activities, for example éadaí for girls/boys. I provided alternatives and made sure that all displays and resources showed more diversity and variety.
The final paragraph of this paper really stood out to me, particularly the author’s statement that “To be a global citizen, is to care. It is to empathise”. I believe that explicitly teaching and encouraging discussions around empathy for others must be the starting point for us as teachers aiming to provide children with the tools and knowledge to become responsible global citizens. This has grown especially pressing in 2025, four years after this paper was published. Unfortunately, Ireland has seen a rise in far right ideology and viewpoints which mark a step away from what Ehigie refers to as the “widespread, cultural adherence to ideals of fairness and equality”.
It is my experience that in the Infant classes, children’s sense of right and wrong is closely tied up with fairness, primarily in the context of making sure that they are not being treated unfairly (e.g. that other children are sharing with them, that their partner does not have more of a given resource than them). I have found that facilitating discussion of different examples in story books etc about whether a character has been treated fairly or unfairly, and how they would feel in their situation, helps the children express empathy and put themselves in another’s shoes. From here, discussions of ‘what would you do to help if you were in this story’ can shift the focus to action and encourage the children to see that empathy requires meaningful action. These discussions can provide the vocabulary for conversations around real world issues.
I think that it is incredibly important that children link empathy to meaningful action. Without action, children may experience empathy as unhelpful and distressing overwhelm when they learn about the suffering of others.