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Hi Carole! I really like the practical ideas you shared for the classroom and school, especially school gardens and green schools activities. My school has really worked on the garden this year and it’s so great to see it coming along and students delighted with their plants and veg. Also liked your piece on saving energy in the classroom which makes the concept of caring for the environment so tangible for students.
Hi Carole! I really like the practical ideas you shared for the classroom and school, especially school gardens and green schools activities. My school has really worked on the garden this year and it’s so great to see it coming along and students delighted with their plants and veg. Also liked your piece on saving energy in the classroom which makes the concept of caring for the environment so tangible for students.
In my local area, it is clear the impacts of climate change are increasingly evident through unpredictable weather patters, heavy rainfall which result in flooding and hotter, drier summer spells that lead to regional water restrictions and hosepipe bans. These changes disrupt the local area biodiversity, farming and daily routines making climate issues very real for pupils and local citizens.
To engage my student sin exploring this further, I would start with place based inquiry having students observe and track local weather data, investigate local habitats, and map environmental changes in our community. This would also be a great integration with SPHE, Science and Geography.
Three concrete actions we could take in our classroom to make a positive could include:
1. Establishing a zero-waste and composting routine: auditing lunchbox waste, eliminating single-use plastics and putting food scraps into a composting bin to build a classroom compost system for school garden beds. I’ve seen this work in other schools and I think it might be something to suggest at the next Croke Park hour meeting!
2. Creating friendly green spaces: planting native Irish flowers, trees and biodiversity patches on school grounds to support wildlife and local bees. This works well in local areas.
3. Energy savers campaign: Encouraging walking, cycling to school. In my classroom every student has a job and one is an energy monitor to manage classroom lighting use.
Looking back across this course, development education is a powerful tool for SSE under looking at our school. For pupil voice, critical thinking and global citizenship across learner outcomes and learner experiences. By embedding development education methodologies into SESE, SPHE and literacy, schools and teachers can set clear, measurable SSE targets such as; auditing sustainability practices, promoting anti-racism, or expanding global awareness. Ensuring the school culture is actively inclusive, active, empathetic, agentic and future focused.
Hi Áine! Cutlúr really is a great local organisation to know about. I liked reading about your schools parent English classes through the HSCL and the language buddying system.
Our school has intercultural week and its so wonderful to see students happy to represent and share about their background or learn about something new. It works really well and we find a lot of parents are so generous with their time and delighted to bring in food and help out.
That incident with a pupil sounds heartbreaking. Management teams often struggle to know where to turn when racism spills into the community. I would suggest checking out Black and Irish or Briana Fitzsimmons, as they work with schools on building anti-racist and anti-bias classrooms/schools. Clearer guidelines and supports linking in with anti-racism organisations for support would really help a lot of schools handle those tough situations better. All the best!
Looking into local supports, organisations such as Cultúr Migrant Centre (working across Louth and Meath) and national groups like the Irish refugee council do incredible work supporting refugees, international protection applicants and families settling into local communities. Another organisation, Hands4Unity.
In the primary classroom, welcoming refugees starts with building empathy and creating a genuine sense of belonging. This year our school became a ‘school of sanctuary’ which is an amazing proactive programme. Another action would be to join the Yellow Flag Programme. On a classroom level, pupils can set up a peer buddy system for new students, create dual language welcome signs, or organise a welcome party. Initiatives like hosting a welcome party, assembly, or intercultural week allow students and families to feel seen and celebrated.
From an SSE perspective, development education around refugee integrations links to learner experiences. we can use SSE to audit our school environment gathering pupil voice through student council surveys or focus groups to evaluate how inclusive and welcoming our school culture actually feels. setting targets around anti-racism, empathy, and global citizenship ensures our welcoming actions are active, embedded, and long lasting rather than just one off events.
Hi Emma, liked your reflection. SDG4 is a big one and the global gap for girls is a lot. Bringing in more books with female pioneers and trailblazers is such a simple yet powerful way to boost their confidence early on.
I would choose SDG6: Clean water and sanitation, as it directly impacts children on both a global and local level. For example, globally millions of children lack access to safe drinking water, forcing them to walk miles to fetch water and miss out on education in some situations. Locally in Ireland, children often view water as an infinite resources (as it also rains so much) making it harder to grasp water scarcity. However, recent summer dry spells, hosepipe bans, and local water restrictions bring the reality of water conservation right to the forefront.
To align with ESD to 2030 priority action area 5: accelerating local level actions, I would use the real-life context of Irish hosepipe bans to anchor a ‘local water guardians’ initiative in the classrooms. we could start by exploring why hosepipe bans happen in Ireland despite our wet climate examining water storage, local rainfall data, and daily usage. pupils could audit water consumption across our school and home environments, identifying simple habitat changes like turning off taps while brushing teeth or resting rainwater for gardening. This could be extended to local tidy towns or our green school committees to design a child-friendly water saving guide for local household and businesses. this makes learning and the SDGs local and relatable.
Hi Chloe, I notice that same dynamic in my classroom especially during are play and group activities. I really like your emphasis on using cooperative group work and diverse storybooks as development education methodologies to break down those barriers. Giving them the space to question ‘why?’. Also, auditing our own classroom language and resources as teachers is a great way to build inclusive school culture.
Children can be highly perceptive to their surrounding environment and quickly absorb ideas about identity like race, gender culture from media and society long before they enter the classroom. so by the time they arrive, gender stereotypes are often already form, shaping how they interact with each other and how they see themselves. A scenario I’ve often seen in the primary classroom is during free play, art, or group work, where children make offhand, sweeping statements like “girls are just better at drawing” “girls just like the game dress to impress” or “boys are better at sports”. Which can place artificial limits on what children think they can or should do. This is where Development Education methodologies really come in handy. Instead of just telling them “that’s not true,” development education encourages us to use critical questioning and participatory learning. Using tools like circle time, or open ended stories, we can pause and ask: “Why do we think that?”, “Can anyone be good at drawing if they practice?”. By creating a space for child-led discussion and bringing in books or real-life stories that challenge these rigid ideas, we help young learners think critically about fairness and equality from an early age. I really like utilising my local library for books to read for story time or a stimulus for Global Citizenship.
Hi Anna, Really like your point about auditing what’s already happening in your school for SSE. Building on existing strengths like green schools and the student council is such a sustainable way to deepen development education without reinventing the wheel.
Development Education is important for empowering pupils to become active, empathetic global citizens in an interconnected world. As Ehigie (2021) shares, global citizenship requires moving beyond passive awareness to critical thinking, empathy, and collective action for positive change. Development truly takes place when there is a shared realisation of the need for change both locally and globally. In my own teaching, I actively embed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by helping pupils explore how global issues connect directly to their everyday lives. A key practice in my classroom is our daily celebration and awareness calendar. By acknowledging special observances, diversity days, and cultural milestones linked to the SDGs, pupils learn to appreciate diverse perspectives, build empathy, and explore how we can celebrate, uplift, and stand in solidarity with others. To encourage colleagues and myself to plan development education activities throughout the school, I believe in stepping out of our comfort zones together. I would share practical, accessible resources, co-plan thematic initiatives (such as Global Goals or Intercultural weeks), and demonstrate how development education easily integrates across SESE, SPHE, and Literacy to build a cohesive, school wide culture of global citizenship.
This is a great research question. Thank you for sharing, this is something I would like to explore with my classroom.
Question: How is air pollution affecting our school’s environment, and what steps can we take to improve air quality
To get pupils involved in this project, I’d start by discussing what air pollution is and why it matters, especially in places close to where they live and learn. I’d ask them to think about times when they’ve noticed smog, smelled car exhaust, or heard about pollution in the news. This helps them understand that air quality is something that directly impacts their health and daily life.
To make it even more engaging, I’d introduce the idea of our class becoming “Air Quality Detectives.” similar to ‘climate detectives’. We’d begin by exploring the area around our school—walking outside to observe traffic, nearby factories, or even green spaces. We’d use simple tools like air quality sensors or even just our senses to gather data.
Pupils would work in teams to research different aspects of air pollution: what causes it, how it travels, and how it affects people and the environment. They could interview local experts, like an environmental scientist or a public health officer, to learn more about the issue. Using EO Browser, we could look at satellite images to identify sources of pollution and see how our area compares to others.
Assignment 4 – Choice 2
EO Browser is an incredible, free online tool that lets students explore real satellite images of our planet in just a few clicks. Imagine your class looking at how our town has changed over time. Study volcanic eruptions, or tracking pollution in the air—all from a simple, user-friendly website. Just imagine, being able to pull up real satellite images of different places on Earth, right in the classroom! That is possible through EO. For a geography lesson, you could show how landscapes like forests or coastlines have changed over time, helping students really see the effects of things like deforestation or climate change. It makes the concepts so much more tangible and relatable for them. Allowing students the opportunity to visually connect what you teach and they learn in subjects like geography, science, and math to real-world data, making learning engaging and relevant which is amazing for senior classes.
You can use EO Browser to show kids how our world changes, link these images to lessons about nature, weather, and the environment, and even create fun projects where they compare images over time. It’s a perfect way to bring the world into the classroom and make abstract concepts tangible and exciting for young learners.
I like how you’ve highlighted the importance of focusing on solutions, such as the development of renewable energies and promoting sustainability. This not only empowers students with knowledge but also encourages them to think about their own actions and how they can contribute to a more sustainable future.