Rusheen National School

March 15, 2019Green FlagComments Off

Rusheen N. S. has already earned two Green Flags, one for Litter and Waste and the other for Energy. For the last two years we have been looking at the theme of Water and how we can best use and conserve it inside and outside school. Our Green School Committee members include Mr. Coakley and Mr. Twomey, Jessie Murphy our SNA, and pupils Jack White, Lily O Shea, Jamie Kearney, Ben Hinchion and Lucy Hinchion. Past pupils Nora Kate O Leary, Shauna Lehane, Michael O Riordan and Sarah Cuddihy were on the committee last year.

We put together an Action Plan and some of the main points were:

Installation of a Water Meter to measure our water use
Reducing volume of water when flushing toilets
Installation of water butt at garden shed to harvest rainwater
Look at collecting stream water for watering our flowers and vegetables
Switch-Off-Sheriffs appointed to check lights and taps are turned off
Visit from Environmental Officer Cork County Council, Katherine Corkery, to talk to pupils about water and the environment
An “Action Day” on February 20^th. All classes undertook a “Water” activity such as designing posters, water experiments, songs, poems etc with water as the theme.
Visit to Danone/Nutricia plant by 5^th and 6^th classes to give a PowerPoint presentation entitled “Rusheen National School – Green and Clean”

On Friday March 8^th we were visited by Collette Creedon, Energy & Climate Change, Environment Directorate, Cork County Council, to assess our application for our third Green Flag (Water). She interviewed the children on the committee and was very impressed with their level of knowledge about the steps we have taken to conserve water use in the school. She also visited all classrooms to find out about the work all classes did in relation to water. She saw art work and listened to Water Conservation songs. Again all our pupils did themselves proud. We will know in a few weeks if our application has been successful.