Details and photos from our recent French exchange to Lyon.

Tuesday: More fun in Lyon today! French improving all the time and confidence building up among all our students. We had classes all morning with girls tasting music, french, Science and Art. Experiencing a full day at their school was very enjoyable especially given the early start and one hour lessons. This was topped off by an amazing visit to La chocolaterie!

Wednesday: And so its the last night. 😔Today we had a walking classroom experience- this was very different to anything we have ever done at home. Visited Gratte ciel and broke into two groups for researching the district and filling in worksheets.

THursday: Au revoir! Everyone is home safe and sound and missing our fabulous French friends in Les Iris. What a fantastic and welcoming week we spent with them and their families. We cannot wait to reciprocate the kindness shown to us when they come back to Ireland in April. Living a language is definitely learning a language for life. We have created life long memories and are so grateful for the opportunity. Huge thanks to Miss Ní Mháille for organising the trip and Mr Keeney for teaching us so much French abroad! We will not forget it. Thanks also to our students who were so well behaved and represented our school so remarkably, what wonderful ambassadors. A pleasure to travel with!

Our new 3D printer which just finished an iPhone acoustic amplifier print. This will be used for project work in the school going forward.

By Saidhbhe Honeyman

On the 13th December, all 3rd year students travelled to Dublin Zoo for our CSPE trip. We had chose stewardship as our concept for this and after much discussion, we decided on Dublin Zoo. Everyone in the year picked an endangered animal and researched it’s habitat, speceies etc. Our research team compiled all the results in one PowerPoint presentation, so before we even left, we knew about Dublin Zoo animals and the importance of zooardship.

At the zoo, we looked at zooardship, education, breeding, research and conservation of the animals at Dublin Zoo. But none of these would be possible without research. Research done by major zoologists around the world and even by our own zoologists in Ireland. We were given examples of good and bad stewardship and asked to organise them as good or bad. We also had a debate on in-situ (keeping animals in zoos) and ex-situ (leaving them in the wild). We were given a tour of the zoo in our respective classes and learned about the Amur Tiger.