Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Litter Pickers

Each fine day following the lunchbreak at the school, four hardy volunteers from Ms. O'Neill's class take to the school yard and field armed with litter pickers and re-cycled cotton bags, kindly provided by Cliodhna Connolly, the Environmental Awareness Officer at Wexford County Council.

Their mission is to pick up and then seperate any rubbish / litter that may have found its way into our area. All involved in the school are thrilled that this class have taken on this task and thanks to their dedication and hard work the yard is usually in excellent shape. Long may it continue!

Energy Officers

Over the past few years many huge changes have been made in the school that saw it awarded a BER of B-2 in October 2009. Amongst these changes were having all the window panes in the old school replaced with tinted, double glazed panes, the exterior walls insulated and the attic insulation upgraded.


The timber units at the doors to the front of the school were also insulated. All this work took place before the heating system installed in 1971 was replaced in the first three months of 2010.


However to improve the efficiency of the school even further the pupils came up with the idea of "Energy Officers." Ms. McGovern's class overlook this simple scheme everyday. Wearing their bright yellow tee-shirts, generously supplied by the Parents' Association, four pupils do a rapid tour of the school at the start and end of each break. Their job is simple...turn off any lights left on by accident and ensure that all the doors are to the outside of the school are closed. This simple job keeps the electricity bill down while preventing vlauable heat loss from the school to the atmosphere.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Fun Phone Facts






Mobile phones are one of the biggest technological advances made in recent years. Fifteen years ago very few people owned a mobile as they were big, expensive to buy and calls cost a fortune.


Today it would be surprising if anyone reading this didn’t own at least one and around 75% of people in Ireland own and regularly use a mobile phone. This means that there are roughly 3,133,000 mobiles in use in Ireland.


Statistics for the UK are more staggering where many people, just like Ireland, have more than one mobile or have old phones lying around at home. There are an estimated 90 million unwanted phones in the UK alone many of these are as a result of the 15million phones that are upgraded there every year.


Some person worked out that if these phones were laid end to end they would stretch from John O’Groats to Land’s End…..a distance of 1,300km or from Wexford to Dublin and back again more than four times.


This mobile mountain weights around 12,000 tonnes and it is estimated that only 5% of old mobile phones are currently recycled.