Category Archives: Development Education

TY FEAST Workshop

Thanks to Devin from FEAST Ireland for an excellent workshop with our TYs. Through the ‘Food from the Land’ workshop students learned more about the traditions of bread and butter making, about farmed and foraged foods and got the chance to practice some butchery skills with some wild pheasants. Lots of discussions on food sustainability, where our food comes from and a great opportunity for students to taste game meat which they all enjoyed with their freshly baked rolls and butter that they also made.

TY/Fifth Year Trip to Ploughing Championships

On 19th September, TY and 5th year agricultural science students travelled to the National Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, Stradbally Co. Laois. Students visited many of the exhibitions including Teagasc, Farmers Journal, Irish Bees Association, Cattle Breed exhibits, Sheep Breed exhibits, Poultry, Pigs and also a talk on the importance of agriculture and sustainability on a Global scale from our President Michael D Higgins. All of this forms part of key learning outcomes for Ty Science, Senior Level agricultural science and Global Citizenship Education.

Fairtrade Fortnight

As part of our work in Global Citizenship, this year for Fairtrade Fortnight students learned more about the benefits of supporting fairtrade for the farmers and producers of some of our favourite food products like bananas, chocolate, tea and coffee. This year we looked more critically at the topic with a focus on how climate change is impacting how our food is being produced.
Ms Cooney and the Social Justice Club organised a fairtrade stand in the canteen area for students to sample a selection of fairtrade treats. Staff also enjoyed a Fairtrade Cuppa Morning. Students from Ms Moran, Mr Mullen and Ms Cooney’s CSPE, Geography and Home Economics classes looked at the topic further. Mr Mullen’s 1st and 3rd year Geography classes enjoyed some fairtrade hot chocolate.
On Tuesday 7th March we were delighted to welcome Aidan and Hannah from Fairtrade Ireland along with Special Guest Innocent Owomuhangi a fairtrade tea farmer from Uganda to the school. They spoke to students, staff and members of our community about the importance of supporting fairtrade. This was a brilliant opportunity for everyone to meet a farmers directly involved in fairtrade.
We invited a number of people in our community to the event and so we would like to say thank you to Patricia Holahan from Leitrim County Council, Michael representing Ballinamore Supervalu, Vincent and Cian representing Tesco Ballianmore and Kay Maguire and Ian from Ballianmore Tidy Towns who attended the event on Tuesday.

TY FEAST Workshop

TY’s recently enjoyed a workshop delivered by Devin from FEAST Ireland as part of their global citizenship education class. A fun and informative workshop where students learned about sustainable Irish produce, how the food system affects climate change, food miles, impact that war, famine and brexit has on food availability and the practice of zero waste food. They tasted Irish oysters, granola made from spent grains, kombucha, sourdough and banana skin chutney. The workshop also got students thinking more about the SDG around zero hunger which generated lots of discussion. The workshop was funded through the WorldWise Global Schools programme our school is involved in.

TY Gender Inequality Action Project

As part of their YSI project, with the aid of Angela Horgan from YSI and Aife Kearns from Innovating Communities, the TYs used the Design Thinking approach to develop an action project around awareness of gender inequality. Over the past couple of months, students researched the issue and developed an approach to raise awareness.

This culminated in the group devising a poster campain in the school which outlined important facts and figures around the issue. To encourage students in the school to engage with the campaign, the TYs hosted a quiz last Friday for all junior students, with most of the questions being about information included in the posters.

To encourage engagement with the posters and quiz, the group had previously hosted a bake sale to fund desirable prizes including cinema tickets and easter eggs.

The event was a superb success, with students really enjoying the quiz and learning a lot in the process. No doubt our students will now be able to spread the word and help drive change around this important societal issue into the future.

Climate Action Week

Our Climate Action Week kicked off this week  with members of the Green School Committee overseeing our new waste disposal / waste segregation bins and great to see students refilling / reusing their water bottles.
🔋We are asking all in our school community to check around your houses for old batteries to give to students to bring in and dispose of in any of the blue battery boxes around the school. WEEE Ireland will then be disposing of them safely. 🔋
👔👗If you have any unwanted clothing items we are also doing a clothing collection this week (see the flyer for times we are collecting from). All the clothing collected is going to a company called All Tex and money raised from this initiative we will be giving to charity.