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Reducing waste in our schools is so important. We make huge efforts also to compost any food waste when possible
I live just outside Gorey in Co Wexford. Every morning driving through the town going to school there are a team of dedicated volunteers who endeavour to keep our town clean and tidy. They sweep the streets and water the plants and trees that are planted there. We recycle the cardboard and the local tidy towns committee work really hard to keep the town to a very high standard. Every year we have a shop window competition where we all make huge efforts to spruce up the businesses in the town. There are fabulous fish shops where local produce is sold.
During the day in the classroom the class would always use reusable bottles, they also recycle their lunch waste and take home any rubbish. We print on both sides of paper and use any waste paper for doodling.
I work in Arklow and there are many opportunities for walks rather than depending on transport. We visit the seashore and plan to do more next year to develop the children’s awareness of the importance of sustainability.I also could not believe the amount of healthy vitamins in seafood, definitely motivates me to cook more fish dishes for my family
The benefits of eating seafood are unbelievable. they are full of essential vitamins and nutrients that we in Ireland are often lacking. We need more awareness around the health benefits of eating seafood. Also BIM need to have more tasting opportunities and provide more for schools undertaking cookery lessons. The school dinner progrmamme might seem appealing but free cookery lessons in our schools with budgets for schools would be much more beneficial. Give a man a dinner feed him for a day, teach him how to cook and feed him for life comes to mind. We as teachers can design lessons but until the Government and the country’s parents take their heads out of the sand, very little will change. Once again the responsibility is being out on the teacher’s shoulders. While I accept that we can educate the children we need more help
I agree that we all need more opportunities for hands-on STEM activities, we need to look at how we can promote aquaculture too
Teachers apply the concepts and skills from the ARC resources by looking at their lesson design. Rather than beginning with content alone, teachers can start with a challenge, or task that encourages investigation and creativity. This aligns closely with STEM policy priorities such as critical thinking, problem-solving, digital competence, and the development of learners’ ability to transfer knowledge into practical contexts.
This means teachers can use ARC approaches to:
-Increase student agency, giving learners more responsibility for questioning, testing, revising, and presenting solutions.
-Use planned learning structures, where students work in teams and develop communication and peer-learning skills alongside subject knowledge.
-Encourage reflection and assessment, helping students explain not just what they learned, but how they approached a problem and improved their thinking.Yes I agree, if we had some experts from BIM or people who are aquaculture farmers could come and develop awareness to our schools and promote this to inspire future farmers…
Aquaculture has embedded itself particularly on the west coast of Ireland, as the agricultural land has lent itself to farmers turning to the sea for income. The weather this year has definitely shown us that more of our coastlines are prime locations for aquaculture also. Sitting here writing this piece in a scorched sunny south east garden makes me wonder if more of our farmers on the east coast should also consider different ways of income. Historically we have read of Peig and how they lived the island life, we also have heard of trawlers that permeat Irish coastlines. Going forward as an island nation we need to make full use of our coastlines. We need to look and develop aquaculture to it’s full potential as the Irish food market is at it’s best and it’s reputation worldwide is highly renowned. Communities like Courtown in Wexford could benefit economically from aquaculture and it just needs investment and promotion to help it flourish. We are an island nation but we need to develop aquaculture farms to reap the rewards and bring benefits to their communities.