News & Events

On September 28th, 11 pupils from Blackrock College attended a climate change meeting at the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown county council offices as a part of the green schools committee. Along with two other schools the pupils got three lectures on fair trade, climate change, and bio environments in the mornings. In the afternoon they played games that focused on international trade relationships that were greatly enjoyed by all. Also we tied in a competition with Loreto Foxrock to see who had the most eco friendly lunch and both schools received 100 euro each. The day was fun and educational and we would like to thank Mr. Daly for setting up the day.

Today on behalf of the Blackrock College Green-Schools Committee; Andrew Patton, David Lavelle, Pierce Dargan and Mr. John Daly received our Green-Flag from An Taisce at an official presentation ceremony in Taylor’s Hall. Click here to see photos.

Over the next few days the flag will be flown from the top of the Clock tower in the school to celebrate the school’s achievement of its first ever Green-Flag.

The Green-Flag will ultimately fly from its own flag pole. This will be at the corner of the running track field (at the intersection between the road from the Jubilee Hall and the entrance to the car park).

The Green-Flag has to be renewed every two years. As I’m sure you all know this first Green-Flag was awarded to us for our work on the theme of “Litter & Waste”. In order to renew our Green-Flag in two years time we all now have to begin working on the second theme of “Energy” For more info visit: www.greenschoolsireland.org 

The Blackrock College Green-Schools Committee would like to thank everyone involved in the Green-Schools Programme. We hope that you will all continue to recycle both at home and school  and will embrace our new theme of “Energy”.

Today as part of our ongoing campaign to raise awareness about recycling Mr. Copeland’s Transition Year business class paraded around the classrooms dressed as various pieces of recyclable material. Click here to see full size photo.

Also today survey was held at check-in. The survey consisted of a number of short multiple choice and yes/no answer questions. Two or more members of the Green-Schools committee members stood at each year’s check-in desk with a clipboard and surveyed about every 3rd person.

Questions included:
“What colour are the recycling bins in the school?”
“Name two things that can be recycled in the yellow bins.”
“Can sweet bar wrappers go in the yellow bin?”

The idea behind the survey was to raise awareness about recycling and to get people thinking about what can and can’t go in the yellow recycling bins. This was achieved by telling the students the correct answer to any questions they got wrong e.g. “Can mars bar wrappers go in the yellow bin?” Many students got this question wrong and were corrected and told that Mars bar wrappers and other sweet wrappers are not paper and thus can’t be recycled in the school at this moment in time.

We plan to produce statistics from this survey which will be available on this website very shortly.

As the final part of our application for a Green Flag, the school must be assessed. Over the next few weeks we are expecting an inspection by an assessor from Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council on behalf of An Taisce. The assessor will be inspecting the litter and recycling facilities in the school, and will ask students various questions about recycling to test the level of recycling awareness in the school.

If successful and the school passes the inspection, the school will be awarded a Green Flag by An Taisce in March.

 

The Green Schools Committee in association with Blackrock Tidy Towns Committee did a clean up of the car park beside the church in Blackrock Village. This involved picking up litter, cutting the overgrowing hedges, removing graffiti and sweeping up leaves. Click here for a report of the action day.

Click here to view photos of the day.

 

After intensive weeks of work by the committee, we are finally submitting our application for the Green-Schools award to An Taisce for their December 1st deadline. We have submitted the application by email to reduce the paper trail. The file we have submitted contains hyperlinks to all the information we have made available on our website.

 

Next Tuesday volunteers from Blackrock College will take part in a tidy up of the public car park beside the Catholic Church in Blackrock village. Working with Dun Laoghaire County Council and the Blackrock Tidy Towns Committee, we plan to remove litter from the area and attempt to remove graffiti from the surrounding walls. We may also be able to remove some of the weeds from the edge of the car park.

 

Over the past few weeks we have uploaded many of our resources to our website. (Click on the links below.)

These include:
Minutes of our Meetings,
a Powerpoint Presentation as part of our Recycling Awareness Campaign,
Our Action Plan,
Statistics from Thorntons,
Our Green Code,
Photos of our Events,
A report and statistics from our Car Free Day / Traffic Survey Report, and
The Committee List

 

Each year the Transition Year students run a radio station called BCR 92.1FM (Blackrock College Radio) for a week in November. It is broadcast on within a 5 mile radius of the school on 92.1FM and across the world on www.blackrockcollege.ie

This year, students in Mr. Copelands economics class put together a 30 minute programme on the Environment.

Click the links below to listen to an excerpt from the programme.

Click here to listen to the BCR Envrionmental Programme(Windows MediaPlayer & iTunes)

Click here to listen to the BCR Envrionmental Programme (Real Player)

 

 

Within the last month yellow recycling bins have been extended to the 1970s building, i.e. 2nd Year, 3rd Year and Transition Year. The committee’s major efforts for the next six months will be to persuade the pupils to use these bins and to use them properly.

 

Over the past fortnight Andrew Patton and Rory Heskin have been visiting individual 5th Year classes to promote litter awareness, and the correct use of the recycling bins. In each classroom they used a PowerPoint presentation to get the message home.

Click here to view the PowerPoint presentation.

Monday 1st - Friday 9th October 2007 was Environmental Awareness Week in the school. Mr. Copeland and his Transition Year class made excellent environmental and recycling displays and posters which they put up all around the school. The main aim of this Environmental Awareness Week was to promote recycling in the school with the "Green goes Yellow" advertising campaign. Our recycling bins and bags in the school are all yellow so the Green going Yellow campaign was aimed at encouraging people to do their bit for the environment (Green) and recycle (in the yellow bins). The next Environmental Awareness Week will run from the 25th - 29th February 2008.

Click here for photos of some of the Displays.

 

As part of European Mobility week a Car-Free Day is being organised in Blackrock College this Friday, 21st September 2007, by the Blackrock College Green-Schools Committee.
Click here for more info on the Car Free Day.

To celebrate moving into our new building the school invested in new yellow half-moon shaped recycling bins. The committee chose yellow bins as they felt it would draw more attention to recycling points. From this has come the programme “Yellow is the New Green” Click here to see a photo of these bins.

The DLRCC are running a poster and poetry competition. Design a poster or compose a poem on your chosen environmental topic and make your point on improving our envriornment! An excellent opportunity to have your poster / poem feature in the 07/08 ECO Calendar.

Poster Designs to be submitted by 30th of April

For more information email environ@dlrcoco.ie or call 2054817.
Click here for more details.