Dublin Solar Schools Voting Time

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Here are the fantastic ideas the schools in Dublin came up with that they could do on Renewable Energy or Climate Change.

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For your favourite idea

SchoolIdea
Balbriggan ETNS
The project will spark an interest in the students in the sustainable energy available from our Sun. Therefore a Science and Art project making Solar panels from Pizza boxes will be organised. The students will decorate the boxes with Sustainable energy themes and test their panels by melting chocolate and bees wax. We will create a display for our school community week event May 2019 and the students will visit the Flemington community centre and other community groups including O'Dwyers Gaa club, Balbriggan Cricket club and the schools parents association in the hope to inspire sustainable energy conversations.
Blakestown Community School
Installing solar panels will:
1. Enable our school to run on clean energy while at the same time combating greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.
2. Allow us to be part of the revolution on a different level.
3. It will reduce our dependence on outsourced fossil fuels
4. Allow us to inspire the young people in our community.
5. Give us the opportunity to provide an example of Change.
Dominican College, Sion HIll
Our idea is to run a series of immersive theatre workshops (with Dublin artist and past-pupil Lucia Smyth) in devising a performance piece inspired by the urgency of climate change and animal extinction and created through exercises by the students. The project would be open to First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Year students and would be performed for the school and for parents. There would also be a piece devised specifically for the street - physical, comic and highly visual with music - which would be performed outside in Dublin city. Depending on what is organised between April and May this could be performed as part of a bigger environmental rally.
Guardian Angels NS
OUR PLASTIC FREE SCHOOL                                         
We will meet up with our local secondary school very soon and hold a workshop with senior pupils on how to go plastic free.  We will involve our P.T.A.  local shop and local community coffee shop.  We will encourage all pupils and their families to avoid using plastic in so far as possible.  We will encourage our local community cafe to switch to paper/delph cups and to use wooden tea stirrers.  We hope to get our local Spar shop involved by suggesting they only use paper bags and straws.  We will advertise our project through posters, projects also through school, P.T.A. and parish newsletters.
Gonzaga College
The Green-Schools Committee and the Justice and Peace Group could work together to research how renewable energy alternatives can benefit communities in the developing world. For example, renewable energy can help alleviate poverty and make everyday tasks such as cooking, heating homes and cleaning less labour intensive and time consuming. The students could put an exhibition together on the school corridor and present their work to CSPE and RE classes to show the benefits of renewable energy not only for us and our environment but for disadvantaged people around the world.
Harold's Cross National School
We would like to hold a competition among our pupils whereby the children would be encouraged to create their own board games with the theme being 'renewable energy and climate change in the community'. All class teachers would carry out a lesson on climate change and what it means. Children would be encouraged to work at home with their families on the creation of their board games so as to involve the whole family. They would be encouraged to use everyday items from around the house and to only use recyclable materials. Each entrant would have to present their board game to their class and the class could vote for their favourite board games. On overall prize could be awarded for the most imaginative and creative entry from each class group.
Holywell ETNS
The Green Schools Committe in our school are working on a project under the supervision of teacher Louise Lynch on climate change. They want the children in the school to understand what climate is and what they can do in their everyday lives to support this. The children will showcase their project to the school population (650 pupils) at their monthly assembly. They will record their presentation and upload it to the school app which is followed by 1,200 parents/guardians and the wider school community. The Green Schools Committee will also work in collaboration with a representative from An Taisce in sustainable energy in the school, focusing on how solar panels can generate efficient, low cost energy in our school.
Newpark Comprehensive
Our plan has three strands: 1 - AWARENESS: Contact parents and students in our school and ask them to calculate their contribution to Climate Change by using a food miles calculator; 2 - ACTION: Encourage students and parents to sign a petition asking local supermarkets to stock more climate friendly products by stocking goods sourced in Ireland and the EU (where possible) 3 - EFFECT CHANGE: Present this petition to local supermarkets to effect real change.
Scoil an tSeachtar Laoch

Our activity will be a survey in the school where children will ask their parents and other relatives (e.g.grandparents) which of the following 5 steps they will be willing to take to help ensure a safe, 
future for their children without climate chaos: 

1/Cut down car use by one day a week at least - instead, walk/cycle/scoot/carpool/use the bus.    
2/Cut down on the family eating red meat (especially beef) one day a week at least/                            
3/Use the brown bin for all food waste                      
4/Replace at least one regular light bulb at home with an energy efficient halogen or CFL bulb                                        
5/Use the 'off switch' for all appliances or lights that are not being used and turn down the heating even by 1 degree.                                                               
We will collate the results and see how many families are willing to take 5 steps/4 steps/3 etc. We will display the results on posters in the hall along with a visual project on climate change and what may happen if emissions are not cut and invite parents to look at it.  We will then follow up 6 months later or at the beginning of autumn to see how many families kept their pledge and if they did not, what prevented them from doing so.

Scoil Mhuire SNS
We would like to have a community energy event. We have linked in with many local groups and visiting workshops while earning our energy flag and we'd like to inform the community of our work and involve the whole school using fun activities and experiments with parent participation.
St Brigid's Boys NS
In St.Brigid's we would run an 'Open Day' in the school celebrating our new panels and advocating renewable sustainable energy. Each year group would complete a project on solar energy and display them in our school hall. We would promote our new energy status and Open Day through: the school website, display banners outside the school on the main road,  the school newsletter and local newspapers . Guest speakers from SEI, lecturers, politicians and local celebrities will visit and speak about our solar panels.  And no celebration would be complete without the Garda Marching Band!
St Colmcilles CS
We believe that a continuous range of a variety of activities promoting the use of renewable energy and climate change is the most effective way to inform our own students in the school and our local community.  We plan to do this through the following activities. 1) Make your own home made solar panels in science class.  2) Hold an environmental awareness week in the school.  3) Connect with our local primary school to promote our community's commitment to a greener environment.  4) Make a promotional video that is shown to every class group that highlights the advantages of solar energy. 5)Interactive Theatre Presentation. 6) Art Competition and Guest Speakers.
St Patricks NS
We propose two activities to highlight renewable energy and climate change in our community.
Run a school wide project to roll out the CODEMA Home Energy Saving Kit so students can understand their home energy consumption. The project will collate valuable community energy data and help identify where savings can be made.
Run a human powered awareness event as part of our Summer activity in May. Pedal Energy is a bicycle powered generator that delivers fun, real-time learning, through movies and music, where the audience are fully engaged in their own energy and climate education
St Pauls CBS
Our activity focuses on involving the entire community to encourage everyone to do their part to reduce energy use. In the run up to Earth hour our students will speak to local businesses, companies and primary schools in the community of Smithfield and Stoneybatter. They will be asked to participate in Earth hour with our school, to turn off any electrical appliances they possibly can and to turn down/dim anything that must be left on. We will all do this for an hour, at the same time. QR codes will be developed by our students which will link to information about the importance of reducing our energy use, and how it can be done. This will all be created by students. The codes will be placed in the windows of local businesses which allows residents and tourists to scan them and learn more about reducing our energy use. In school their will be a slogan and a poster competition for the school and daily announcements in the run up to our Earth hour day with intresting facts on energy use as well as to encourage students to participate at home and to educate them as to the importance of energy reduction.
St Vincents Boys School
The side of our school faces the street and the church but it is grey and boring. We would love to paint a huge mural on it which would show a happy future for our neighbourhood with a focus on the environment and renewable energy in particular! we would ask local artists to design it and get the whole community involved in painting. We would have a grand unveiling and it would brighten up our local community.
Youthreach, Pleasants Street
The students will carry out a survey with local residents on home energy use and gathering information on their knowledge of, and attitudes to renewable energy. The occasion of the centre awards evening with 'parents/students/local residents' would be an opportunity to present the survey findings (at an event where only power from the solar panels was used - lighting, catering/food, music, etc.) The students would create information displays on renewable energy and the urgent need for climate change and speak on what they learned from undertaking the survey.
  

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