We began working on our Green Flag, Water Theme in September 2010.
Committee
On our committee we had:
Mainly transition years with representatives from 1st, 2nd & 5th year, a number of teachers, the caretaker, a member of the community & a past pupil.
Environmental Review
For our environmental review we revisited our litter and waste and energy themes and we began to focus on water conservation. By obtaining water readings from the County Council we found that we were using 3.56m3 of water per day in Oct 2009.
Action Plan
Actions we put in place to reduce our water usage included:
Putting signs up to remind people to switch off taps.
Putting hippo bags in the larger toilet cisterns which reduced the flush from 12L to 9L.
There were talks given to the other years in the school to educate them on water and how they can save more.
All pipes, taps and toilets were checked for leaks, only one leak was found which was fixed immediately. We continue to check for leaks.
More permanent water conservation fixtures included:
Replacing the old taps with mixed taps to reduce the water input.
Sensor system in urinals.
Improved water heaters in Woodwork, metal work and Home Economics rooms.
Replaced kettles in staff room with a large water boiler.
Some toilets were replaced with new water conserving toilets.
Reduced the pressure on some push taps which were using excessive amounts of water.
Inform and Involve
We continuously informed and updated fellow students, staff and community through use of our GS Notice boards, intercom announcements, 3 newsletters per year with info on Green Schools and tips to save water at home. Students were involved in the theme through; cross curricular links, Green code and poster competitions, different years completed various projects on the water theme, 1st and 2nd year students took part in a water usage survey and everyone was involved in our Action day.
The whole school is also involved in the clean up rota in the school and around Foxford town and energy wardens are in place to ensure energy awareness and conservation is continued.
Action Day
We called our action day “Fun Blue Day” because of its connection with water conservation. All students were encouraged to wear blue and pay €1. This money went towards purchasing a water butt and for flowers that were planted on our action day. Transition year students gave presentations to younger students on green schools and the 2nd year students gave a presentation on WEEE Ireland. One of our teachers organised recycling relay races for 1st and 2nd years to teach them how to sort their waste. Aisling Wheeler from An Taisce gave a talk to 5th year students on water conservation and gave a workshop to transition and 5th year students on eco-friendly cosmetics.
Curriculum Links
To find out more about our Curriculum links we interviewed staff regarding their specific subjects. Questions included:
How water conservation is encouraged in subjects
What is the average usage of water in practical subjects
If students and teachers are aware of water wastage
How teachers plan to make pupils more aware of water conservation and waste.
Final Water usage
By raising awareness and putting water conservation measures in place we reduced water consumption from 3.56m3 in October 2009 to 1.83m3 in October 2011
This means we reduced our daily usage per person from 8.75 l/person/day to 4.57 l/person/day.
What we hope for the Future:
Our wish as the green schools committee is for us to continue reducing and recycling our waste successfully in the school.
We want to continue to try to reduce energy consumption in school and encourage students to do the same at home.
We want to continue reducing water usage at school and spread even more awareness on the importance of water conservation.
And above all: