Groups From Tralee Schools Make Finals Of National Eco-Unesco Awards

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Presentation Secondary School students, front from left; Caoimhe Hannafin, Muirne Scanlon, Róisín O’Connell, Leona O’Shea, Sarah Tansley. Back from left; Ellie Stewart, Jennifer Nolan, Kelly Tobin, Kate O’Connor and Maebh Pierse of the Eco-Unesco Science project ‘Out With Japanese Knotweed’. Photo by Dermot Crean

TWO Transition Year groups from Presentation Secondary School and two from Mercy Mounthawk have made the final of the Eco-Unesco Youth Environmental awards to be held later this month and you can vote for the projects online in a public vote.

Both “If your dog poops, You Scoop” campaign and the “Out with Japanese Knotweed” campaigns from Presentation join Mounthawk’s ‘H2Woah!’ and ‘It’s not our world we’re just borrowing it!’ in the finals in Dublin on Wednesday, May 18.

An enormous amount of work has been done by all groups in order to raise awareness of these issues in the school and in the Tralee area in general and the students have received great praise from many people outside the school.

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Over in Presentation, student and their mentors Ms. O’Donoghue and Mrs. O’Keeffe are continuing with final preparations for the National finals.

The Knotweed project has been going on for some months now. The weed is an alien invasive species introduced as an ornamental plant in the 19th century, but has now spread relentlessly across Ireland causing economic and environmental problems.

The girls researched the plant, conducted surveys in the Tralee area, visited local schools giving talks about the weed and some high profile people like Deputy Michael Healy Rae, Paschal Sheehy, Kerry footballer Aidan O’Mahony, RTE’s Dáithí Ó Sé and they were even featured on Irish TV.

Presentation Secondary School students at the launch of the project back in January.

Presentation Secondary School students at the launch of the ‘If Your Dog Poops You Scoop’ project back in January.

Meanwhile the “If your dog poops, You Scoop” campaign has gained momentum over the past few months.

The aim is to promote the picking up of dog waste and to have more dog waste bins available in Tralee. The class also hope that the project will inform people about the environmental dangers of dog waste.

The girls also conducted surveys on dog fouling in town and where were the blackspots  (or brownspots) in town for dog waste. They are out again this Friday doing a “Poop Scoop” in two locations in town – along the canal and Bracker O’Regan.

In Mercy Mounthawk, the aim of the ‘H2Woah’ project is to prevent and reverse the effects of overfishing locally and internationally. This project aims to educate people about overfishing, how to help stop it, and a short stop motion movie. The group gave presentations of the film to primary and secondary schools and advertise their new stop motion film in papers and online.

The other project from Mercy Mounthawk is ‘It’s not our world we’re just borrowing it!’ The group chose to publicise the issue of climate change, and how it will impact their local community. They wanted to make environmental education fun and informative. They held a school eco-forum, designed various workshops for local schools, an orienteering day on Earth Day and a symbolic tree planting.

‘H2Woah’ and ‘Out With Japanese Knotweed’ are competing against each other in the Biodiversity category, ‘It’s not our world we’re just borrowing it!’  is in the Climate Change category, while “If your dog poops, You Scoop” is in the Waste category. To vote for any of the projects click here.

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