17/06/2013

Archived item. This item is published here for historical reasons. The information below may be out of date.

June 10^th 2013 Scoil Nano Nagle, Bawnogue, in the presence of South Dublin County’s Deputy Mayor, Cllr. Matty McDonagh raised their fourth Green Flag for Travel.

The Mayor congratulated all at the school including the parents saying, “Taking part in the Green Schools Programme involves a lot of hard work and a big commitment. To achieve the transport flag, the school carried out travel surveys which showed that walking to school increased from 37% to 59%, and car use reduced from 53% to 24%. This is a very impressive feat”.

The Mayor continued by saying “In addition everyone in the school was encouraged to Walk on Wednesday (WOW). Those involved would meet at the local church at 8.50 and walk the rest of the way to school. Then the class that had the most walkers would receive “the Golden Boot” award and their photograph is then displayed on the Green Notice board. An impressive 67% of the whole school join in with walking and Park ‘n’ Stride programme.”

The students also took part in cycling workshops and a community guard gave talks to the children in relation to road safety and safety in general.

As well as reducing the use of transport, the school continued to maintain the water, energy, litter and waste themes at the school by conserving water & energy, keeping their school grounds litter free and recycling and reducing waste.

Over 3,700 primary, secondary and special schools in Ireland are currently taking part in the programme and 2,778 have been awarded the Green Flag. The Irish Green-Schools programme is one of themost successful within the international network. One of the main factors in the success of the Irish Green-Schools programme is the partnership between the Environmental Education Unit of An Taisce and Local Authorities i.e.the financial and time contribution of the Local Authorities to the programme.

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