Well done to all our pupils on winning the Athlone & Castlerea Green Schools Sustainability Competition. We received a lovely plaque, a certificate and €500 for our school. Thank you to Claire for visiting our school today to make this presentation to our pupils. You will find details below of the work completed by the children in our school. Congratulations everyone.
We completed a project on Hedgerows and their importance for biodiversity and
agriculture
This included learning about:
• The amount of hedgerows in Ireland and how they are measured. (There are 689,000km
of hedges and they are measured using both satellites and drones as well as laser scanning
and geographic information systems
• The types of hedgerows in our local area (the types of plants, bushes and trees that make
up our hedgerows)
• What our ‘ideal’ hedgerow would look like – we each designed our own hedgerow
• How hedgerows provide food and shelter for many animals such as hedgehogs and bats
• Pollinators such as butterflies breed on hedges
• The life-cycle of the butterfly
• The importance of pollination and bees, and how they feed on hedges
• The many birds that are found in our hedgerows and how we can recognise them by their
song.
• The oxygen-carbon dioxide cycle involving hedgerows and how we get clean air from
hedges, plants and trees
• Photosynthesis and how our plants need both light and water to grow healthily
• Planting; we planted potatoes, strawberries, peas, carrots, mint, lettuce, daffodils,
crocuses and tulips. This involved all the pupils in our school.
• How hedgerows protect water quality and water filtration. A well-placed hedge acts as a
barrier, slowing the flow of water over the land and filtering sediments.
• Hedgerows provide shelter for our animals on the farm. This includes shelter from wind,
rain and snow and shade from summer sun. This means that our animals are healthier and
happier when they have hedges at the edges of their fields.
