St. Joseph’s Secondary School, Rochfortbridge, County Westmeath

St. Joseph’s Secondary School, Rochfortbridge, County Westmeath

St. Joseph’s Secondary School, Rochfortbridge, County Westmeath. I attended an EcoEd4All webinar facilitated by my local education centre towards the end of 2020. Little did I know that the 60 minutes I spent online was to dramatically shape and improve the teaching and learning in our TY Geography classes. EcoEd4all is now an integral part of our TY programme. The students focus on the
initiative from January to May. The versatility of the initiative along with the abundance of structured resources were a huge selling point of the programme for us, along with the knowledge that EcoEd4All is exactly what it is named ‘ Eco Ed 4 All’. Last year we focused on 3 modules: Biodiversity 1, Biodiversity 2, and The Circular Economy.

Karen Stenson

Galway Community Project Erasmus Programme

Galway Community Project Erasmus Programme

Climate Change Studies and Research in the European Union

This project is a research collaboration between 3 schools from 3 different countries working with national wildlife NGO’s to research and compile information about locally endangered species.

 These include:

1.GCC in Ireland will be collaborating with the Irish Wildlife Trust.

  • Prva Susacka Hrvatska Gimnazija in Rijeka Croatia will work with EKO wildlife.
  • Instituto de Educacion Secundaria Felix Muriel in Spain will work with Sociedade Galega De Historia Natural.

15 students from each school will research and compile information on designed templates for the endangered species including: Classification, Natural History, abundance, causes of decline and possible corrective actions.

Students will also take part in field studies where possible to fully understand some of the pressures facing these species.

These records will be published and disseminated as widely as possible through local media, social media and through multiplier events held at city hall once a year.

Some audio-visual elements of the project will be filmed and we have a commitment from our national broadcaster to air some of these on young people TV programs.

Students are due to visit each other’s countries to share their findings annually but this element has been delayed due to Covid 19.

Where possible students will implement recommended corrective actions by working with our local council, politicians, influencers and voluntary groups.

Erasmus Coordinator at GCC Tom Flanagan who will be overseeing the project says “this project comes at a time when the EPA’s latest report states the outlook for Ireland’s environment is not optimistic unless we accelerate the implementation of solutions across all sectors and society.

Climate and biodiversity are two of the key challenges we need to address.”

“Projects like this are much needed to raise awareness to help try and hault the continuous degradation of the natural environment”.

http://galwaycc.ie/page/Erasmus-Project/65065/Index.html