In September 2015 Liscarroll National School Green Schools began to partake in the Green School’s  Programme to achieve the school’s third flag. The theme for the next two years was “Water”. To achieve the flag there were seven steps set out by An Taisce to be followed and completed over the two years.

Step one was to elect a Green Schools Committee.This committee was elected by selecting two children from each class throughout the school and three members of staff were also on board.

Step two was an Environmental Review. This was carried out by the weekly reading of the water meter. We then measured the amount of water it took to fill a toilet the children then created a checklist for each room and each child ticked a box each time the toilet was flushed. We also measured the amount of water it took to wash our hands. From these checklists the senior class made a bar chart to explain our findings.

On average, on a daily bases the toilets used 720 litres, sinks 180 litres

Washing machine 65 litres, and dishwasher 20 litres.

The committee also carried out a leak check on the toilets. We carried this out by placing food colouring into the toilet cistern. We discovered that two toilets were slightly  leaking and arranged to have them fixed.

Lios Curam paid regular visits to the stream in the village green to see changes from season to season in the water levels in the stream.

Each class also had energy monitors to make sure lights and switches were turned off in the classrooms, this was carrying on the “Energy” theme from our previous flag.

Step three was to develop an action plan this was created by the committee at their  first monthly meetings. As part of the action plan we organised a water themed week.

This  involved songs to be sung with water theme at assembly, a competition to create a water slogan throughout the classes, stories read about water senior classes read to the junior classes, science experiments, walk a mile with water each individual carried a bottle of water, dress in blue day, art and bookmark competition and a water themed disco. We also had guest speakers from the inland fisheries, the Navy,  water safety and Cork County Council.

Step four of the programme involved monitoring and evaluation.

We achieved this by continuously reading the water metre and doing frequent graphs to show the amount of water being used. A notice  board was set up in the main hallway so the findings could be seen for all pupils and staff. The committee updated all the classes and staff of our findings from our monitoring and evaluation.

Step five of the programme was the curriculum work that was carried out in all classes. This was linked to SESE, Science and Geography. Each class carried out experiments, projects and activities to explore water and its usage.

Step six was informing and involving the students and staff .This was achieved by holding regular meetings and  information being posted on the Green Schools notice board.

Step seven was the Green Code this was achieved by holding a competition throughout the classes. The winning code was “Do the earth a favour be a water saver”.

On the 13th of October Dr. Mary Stack ( Cork County Council) came to visit our school to review our progress on the seven steps to receiving the water flag. During her visit Dr. Stack visited all the classrooms to see the class water displays and we held a meeting with the committee to discuss what they had achieved.

The last step of the committees journey was to complete the Application Form to inform An Taisce of our achievements throughout the two years.

On May 13th Caroline Griffin (Green Schools Co-ordinator) Maudie Twomey (staff rep.) Eva O Callaghan and Jerry Jewitt (student reps.) attended  the flag awards at the Radisson Blue Hotel Cork where they received the third flag on behalf of the committee and school.

Since September 2016 the new Green Schools Committee are busy working towards their next flag. The theme for this year is  “Travel”.Juniors, Seniors and First Class took part in an art competition Second Class composed the green schools code for the new theme our new code is “Don’t be a fool, be cool car pool”. Third class carried out a survey on the traffic that passes through Liscarroll and created a display in the school hallway. Fourth class completed worksheets on travel and fifth and sixth classes did  a survey on travelling to school and displayed their results in their classroom. The children and staff of Lios Curam are carrying out a survey on what they see on their way to school and graphing these findings.