“Our One Good Idea project has succeeded in getting to the National Finals in Dublin Castle in May!.” The statement from St. Joseph’s Presentation Secondary School bristles with delight and pride. The project is being conducted with a hands-on, green-fingers approach in an ancient, elegant glass-house in the Convent Garden.
That the project made it to the national finals is thrilling for the team involved and for the school management.
Fifth year students: Ciara Murphy, Christina O’Connor, Ayano Ikai and Jackie Bonilla with teacher, Niamh Kelly have worked on this project, One Good Idea, through a combination of thorough, modern research and good old fashioned glass-house / green-house gardening methods.
“The competition asks students to run a campaign which will increase energy efficiency and reduce climate change. Our students focused on the food miles of fresh fruit and vegetables and ask people to make two small changes which will help to reduce our impact on the planet: Choose local or Irish produce where possible or Grow it Yourself.
To illustrate how simply vegetables can be grown, the students have been growing their own little vegetable patch which includes: radishes, spinach and beetroot. The Presentation sisters have shared their greenhouse and garden with our students for this project,” said Ms. Kelly.
In other news from the school: Students from Transition Year have been invited to Dail Éireann and are taking up the invitation today, April 22nd.
“We are delighted to announce that the Taoiseach Mr. Enda Kenny, TD will welcome attendees to take part in the questions and answers session with government ministers and Dáil elected representatives.
Teacher, Mairead Lane-Cronin will accompany the students who have been working on the project ‘A Chat a Day keeps Elderly Isolation at Bay’ over the past few months.
And! The school’s Young Social Innovators’ project has qualified for the national finals. They will compete for the overall title of Young Social Innovators of the Year 2015 when they will present it to judging panels in Dublin on May 7th .
The judges will then take the opportunity to ask questions of the teams about the work they did throughout the year to implement an innovative response to a particular issue of social concern.
Meanwhile, a Spanish-English online exchange will take place at the school involving Transition Year students. They have been working hard on their Spanish and this class will provide them with a great opportunity to practice. They talk directly to Spanish native students in the Colegio Divino Maestro, Salamanca.
“Online exchanges allow teachers to make the target culture come alive and give students authentic contexts for communicating in the target language. They are a great way to increase student motivation, make a language class more authentic and interesting and increase students’ language skills and cultural knowledge,” said school principal, Katherine Broderick.
The exchange links take place on Monday mornings from 10.20am to 11a.m. During this class the students will have an opportunity to speak to their Spanish counterparts about different topics of mutual interest like: daily routines, food and music. The exchange times will be divided in half between both languages.
