Irish Teacher: Here's how a Wexford school blossomed into biodiversity

The initiative is ‘therapeutic’ for students who get to plant and connect with nature

Jennifer Horgan, Diary of an Irish Schoolteacher. Pic: Larry Cummins

Ireland is bad at sustainability.

Our briefly elected politicians make short-term decisions, with little consideration for future citizens. The debacle over turf was one example, the maternity hospital is another. Just as we start to haemorrhage tax money to the Church to reconfigure our primary schools, we sign a 300-year lease to build our much-needed maternity hospital on Church land.

It's enough to make you cry.

It’s one of the reasons I like working with young people; they keep me positive. Don’t get me wrong, they can drive me bonkers, but they’ve got a good sense of the way things should be.

An ECO-UNESCO youth climate justice survey report (2020) highlights how much young people care about sustainability. From over a thousand respondents, 800 cite taking public transport, walking, or cycling to protect the planet.

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Meanwhile, over here on Planet Adult, as a non-driver, I can assure you, we’re nowhere near making similar efforts. Sustainability never makes the cut in conversations about my apparent lack of essential life skills. I don’t avoid driving for environmental reasons alone, but it’d be nice if the possibility were on people’s radars at least.

According to the same youth survey, 89% of young people are reducing their plastic use to combat climate change. But as a country, we’re faring poorly in modifying our behaviour. In 2015, Ireland's emissions were double the EU average. They’ve fallen since but are still too high and far from our intended trajectory of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030.

Experts say we need a green stimulus – the implementation of green policies to establish a climate-neutral economy and climate-resilient society. Our students are on board, so what can us adults do to help?

Well, in one piece of good news, Climate Action and Sustainable Development is set to become one of two brand new courses for the Leaving Certificate, piloting from 2024. This is exciting and welcomed by many. But does it go far enough? Should such a course be compulsory for all students at senior cycle, given our climate emergency?

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, though broadly welcomed, this new subject has received mixed reviews. Rather than wanting more on sustainability in the curriculum, some feel the subject isn’t needed. In fact, quite the opposite, they feel it’s covered enough already, in geography, chemistry, politics and society, and economics.

What does ‘covering’ sustainability look like exactly? I don’t know. Could this be another example of adults simply not getting it? Quite possibly.

Or maybe it’s in the less examined areas of the curriculum that the exciting, meaningful stuff is happening anyway. As seems to be the case in WWETB school, Kennedy College in Co Wexford.

Here, at the front and rear of their co-educational, inter-denominational school, what started as sensory spaces, have literally blossomed into biodiversity areas as part of a bigger garden project. Principal Michael Weafer describes the initiative as ‘therapeutic’ for students who get to plant and connect with nature as part of a behaviour for learning group, or during SPHE lessons.

“There is so much learning going on. They might take thirty or forty minutes outside to centre themselves, whilst also learning to communicate, support one another emotionally, work as part of a group. They really look forward to it.”

Weafer tells me other schools under their local ETB are doing similar things.

“I know that Coláiste Abbáin in Adamstown are contributing through their school agricultural community. They use their food waste on-site to feed their animals. They have chickens, rabbits, and sheep. A staff member wrote a short course on agriculture also.”

Back in Kennedy College, everyone is benefitting from the school’s green approach.

“The garden project has changed how we collaborate with the whole school community, re-invigorating how we engage with parents and guardians. They’ve been coming in to help. Our Woodwork teacher made seats and students planted grow boxes. Even the local credit union got on board to help with funding. The green focus is tangible so we’re really pushing that green message out.”

Weafer also feels the curriculum could do with catching up.

“I wish the NCCA would come on board and really give a sustainability focus to the second year CBAs for instance. That would be a powerful way of getting students to think in a sustainable way. There’s a missed opportunity there. There could also be a heavier focus on sustainability in geography for instance, rather than adding a new course that schools may not offer.”

Kennedy College, like many schools, is supporting young people to create a more sustainable Ireland. Here’s hoping grown-ups in power catch on, preferably before their latest lease with the Church is up.