Green Flag Energy Flag                                       

                   

A wonderful celebration for St Michael's raising our second Green Flag for Energy. Preparartions for our flag included carrying out an energy review looking at ways to conserve electricity and heating oil. We rasied awareness by updating our website, sending out parent questionnares and integrating this subject with all cirricular areas. We updated our notice board regulary. The committe organised an Energy Slogan competition involving all the children in the school. We had a Low Energy day in our school which was a great success. Energy workshops were organised by Nial O Connor, allowing the children to learn more about renewable and non renewable energy. There was a trip to Dundalk IT to visit the wind turbines, the children had the opportunity to go inside the turbine to see how it works and learned all about how they save energy. 

Flag Raising Day

We all had a great day at the flag raising ceremony last Thursday. The committee  informed everyone about all the work that they have done over the past two years to achieve this flag. Nial O Connor joined us for our ceremony and thanked everyone for all their hard work. Amy and Owen were choosen to raise our Energy Flag. It was a great afternoon and we enjoyed some Irish dancing and of course the Ice-cream went down a treat!

More photos in the Green School photo gallery. :-)

Well it sure has been an exciting couple of weeks. Conan and Zara represented our school at the Green Schools Flag ceremony in the City North Hotel in Dublin. It was a great day for us all to receive our Green Flag. See Green School photo gallery.

**Energy Flag**

We in St. Michael's N.S. are delighted to announce that we have been awarded our second Green Flag for saving energy in our school. 

Over the past two years the Green Schools Committe along with fellow pupils and the staff of the school have participated in lots of activities that have helped us to reduce our energy usage here in St. Michaels. We are looking forward to being presented with our 2nd Green Flag on the 25th of May 2017 and as a school are very proud of this achievement. 

We would like to thank everybody who helped us along the way to earn this second Green Flag 

We are very excited for the year ahead as we get ready to apply for our second Green Flag. So far we have been very busy doing regular spot checks on the bins and making sure electrical appliances and switches are turned off when we don't need them. We had our second energy workshop which was very enjoyable. Joanna Parkes visited our school to talk to us about Energy and Renewable Energy. We worked in pairs and we talked about the different things we use at home and in school that use energy. We looked at other possible resources that we could use to reduce the amount of energy we use e.g. wind turbines, solar panels etc. We learned lots of interesting facts such as a photocopier that is left on standby for one night it can use enough electricity to make 1,500 copies

Christmas Saving Energy Tips 

• Use LED Christmas tree lights. 

• Always turn off the lights before going to bed

• Swap electronic games for board games 

• Always fill the dishwasher FULL after Christmas Dinner

• Use rechargeable batteries

• Don't obstruct radiators with decorations

• Look for the energy saving logo when buying appliance

Happy Christmas Everyone !!

Energy Saving Tips!!!!!

1. Turn off appliances when they are not in use.                                                                    

2. Don't overfill your kettle - boil only as much water as you need.

3. Use a clothesline when possible- tumble dryers use a lot of energy

Our Green Schools Committee are:

Chairperson: Martin (6th)

Secretary: Conal (5th)

General Members:

Lousie and Karol (6th), Owen and Conal (5th) Amy and Caitlin (4th) Zara (3rd) Hollie (2nd)  Rachel(1st) and Katie (SI)

In Scoil Mhichil we care greatly about environmental issues. We have set up our new Green Schools Committee for the year and have been working hard updating our Green Schools notice board. Over the coming year the Green Schools Committee will be focusing on ways to reduce energy consumption within our school. Nial O Connor came out to visit the committee and talked to the boys and girls about ways that we can work together to raise awareness about saving energy in the school. The children really enjoyed this meeting and identified activities that we can do to begin raising awareness about saving energy. Our 'Energy Team' will be working hard  to complete the energy audit within the school this will involve:

- counting and recording all the lights, radiators and electrical applicanaces within the whole school

- creating pictographs to show this information

- reading electricity and heating  bills to get an over view of the amount of energy that has been used within the past year

-reading meters regularly

- creating posters to show awareness of saving electricity within the school

The committee are also continuing to maintain and monitor the litter and waste within the school. There are three litter wardens that are rotated weekly. The litter wardens are responsible for ensuring that there is no litter or waste lying aournd our school. They also ensure that the bins are emptied weekly. The school will continue to recycle whatever materials they can and reuse any material for artwork or craftwork if possible.

Remember....... Reduce     Resuse      Recycle !!!!

As part of Maths Week the Green School Committee completed their survey on electrical applicances within the school. Using this  information they collected they created a pictograph to display this information on the notice board.

 A big thank you to all the teachers and the pupils for their participation in our Green School Energy Competition. The Green School Committee had a hard decision to make to decide on the  winning slogan.

A big congratualtions to Caoimhe McCabe (6th Class) for her winning poem. Caoimhe received a voucher for the Book Station, we also had runner up prizes in recognition of the wonderful effort made by all of the children.

Low Energy Day

On the 10th of July we had a Low Energy Day in school. This was a great success that the staff and students all enjoyed. We tried to save as much electricity as we could for the whole day. The staff all brought in flasks of hot water and no kettles were used all day. The whiteboards and other electrical appliances were all switched off. The committee done spot checks throughout  the day to make sure that no swtiches were left on. 

Mrs Timoney came around to all of the classes and showed us different things that were used in the past when there was no electricity. We really enjoyed learning about this. 

We only used 12 units of electricity for the whole day, this was a saving of over 30 units which was a great result. 

We learned that a small change can make a big difference!!

Our Green School Committee really enjoyed their trip to DkIT. We learned lots about different ways to save electricity.  Raymond met us at the wind turbine and talked to us about it. He brought us inside the wind turbine where we learned how it generates electicity. We got to see different parts of the wind turbine such as the red light at the top of the wind turbine and the shaft. 

Facts

• The wind turbine was built in 2005

• It is 60 metres tall

• The wind turbine provides electricity for 30% of the college

• The red light at the top allows aeroplanes to see the wind turbine