This article is from page 33 of the 2009-10-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 33 JPG
ST Tola’s National School in Shannon has been congratulated for its efforts in caring for the environment, after it engaged in an initiative which en- courages students to walk to school.
The school is preparing for its fourth green flag. To coincide with Road Safety Week last week, the school organised its own initiative, WOW (Walk on Wednesday). Four meeting points were set up and from those, students walked to school, in the form of a walking bus.
Green Schools co-ordinator Lor- raine Connolly said that every effort is being made to care for the environ- ment.
“Members of the school commu- nity will make a conscious effort of a more environmentally friendly way of travel. Staff will try to car pool
and this will reduce the numbers of cars in the car park. We have also launched a green leaves and tree campaign. Every class has a tree and they look after them. That was the first part of our initiative. Everyone was really enthusiastic about that,’ said Ms Connolly.
The next part of the project was WOW, which was a huge success last AYA(ere DaTenNe ENYA
“The Green Schools committee is working very diligently. We are try- ing everybody to work together. We are hoping that this will leak into the community,” she said.
WOW was a huge success and the Green Schools committee is hoping to repeat the feat later in the school Were
“We are hoping to do it a couple of times in the year. Since we started, we did audits in every class. We have
definitely seen more children making a conscious effort to walk to school and the car parks are a lot quieter,” said Ms Connolly.
157 families are represented in St Tola’s school and the Green Schools committee is hopeful that as many of those as possible will play a role in the school’s effort to earn its fourth green flag.
Roisin Ni Ghairbhith from An Taisce’s Environmental [Education Unit paid tribute to the good work of those involved in the initiative at St Tola’s.
“Tam very impressed with the speed at which St Tola’s has jumped to the challenge of their travel flag. St To- la’s is one of only 15 schools in Clare that are on their fourth green flag and they have only just started the theme this September,’ she said.
“They have already done a lot of
work on it, including walkability audits and art work to raise aware- ness about sustainable travel. The children have been learning the safe cross code too, all to prepare them for their mission to encourage the entire school body and community to use their cars less on their route to school, be it walking, cycling, car pooling or parking and striding in- Stead,” she added.
She said the WOW idea is an excel- lent idea. “This 1n itself is very effec- tive because if people start by walk- ing once a week, instead of using the car, that is an immediate 10 per cent reduction in their CO2 emissions and and immediate improvement to their health and pocket,’ she added.