Well done to the Green School Committee, teachers, staff and guest speakers for all of their hard word for helping to organise, and for partaking in the action day. It was a huge success and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it!

At last the long awaited Water Action Day arrived on Friday 7^th December 2018 which was filled with fun activities. The day began with a Guest Speaker from Lough na Garnaman who discussed in-depth where water to the school in addition to most of the pupils’ houses locally actually comes from and the treatment process involved. She explained to the pupils how water pumps are used to monitor water bursts & water wastage. She showed the pupils samples of water meters used to measure water usage together with samples of raw water & treated water. The pupils were very intrigued!

The day proceeded with storytime using the ever popular story ‘The Drip’ by Gordon Green. The children rotated from classroom to classroom chanting water rhymes, poems and songs. Part of the day was focused on engaging in water experiments such as investigating floating & sinking, waterproof or non-waterproof, absorbent or non-absorbent objects and materials.

Finally we had another two Guest Speakers from our local Celtic Pure water company who spoke at length on the foundation of the company and the formation of bottled water in their plant. They also delved into recycling and what the plastic bottles make once recycled which was very interesting e.g. 1 bottle makes 2 pens, 48 bottles makes a quilt etc. The children found it all very interesting. We all learned about how a bottle is formed and how these bottles are filled, capped, labelled and shrink wrapped and ready for sale.

All the teachers and pupils throughout the school worked hard in learning about Water topics which integrated well with a variety of curricular subjects. For example Junior and Senior Infants learned about water sources, uses of water and The Water Cycle. They even experimented with making a cloud which was quite interesting! 1^st to 6^th classes engaged in valuable learning about Weather elements in particular investigating hurricanes, flooding and they experimented with freezing and melting. Lots of rhymes/poems and songs about water were learned in all classes and some of the senior classes did a great job on devising water acrostic poems.

St.Michael’s N.S. began their journey of learning about Water and Water Conservation in September 2017. The Green School Committees worked tirelessly over the last year beginning with conducting an initial environmental review throughout all classes in an effort to establish pupils’ knowledge of the following:

• Where does water come from?
• Where does the schools’ water come from?
• Where does waste water go?
• Where does the schools’ waste water go?

Initial findings were positive but what was interesting was the lack of knowledge on the true source of the schools’ water i.e. Lough na Garnaman and so the committee used the findings to educate the school as to the correct answers to the above questions. From that we felt that it would be beneficial for all students to learn more about where our water comes from and the treatment process involved before it enters our school and our homes, a project we saved for our action day.

The Green School committee proceeded to gather, share and discuss lots of interesting facts about water together with a selection of Water Wise tips for saving water. They also organised a Water Slogan Competition for the whole school, the winner of which was Lauren McGahon with the very intriguing slogan: ‘SLOW THE FLOW, SAVE H2O’!