Blessington Community College

Blessington Community Environmental Council & Rediscovery Centre

Blessington Community College and their newly formed Environmental Council had their first event on Monday. They welcomed Arran from the Rediscovery Centre who talked to the group about the circular economy, the impact of fast fashion and how to up cycle household items. The event was funded by the EAO in WCC and Blessington Tidy Towns. In the pictures below, you can see the council members making tote bags from some of the t-shirts leftover from the schools Amber Flag Day. Did you know that the average cotton t-shirt uses 2,700 litres of water to produce? The same amount a human would consume in 7 years! That’s fast fashion for you! The Blessington Community College Environmental Council will be using their platform to inform students but to also raise issues that the schools students are concerned about at local political level. We wish them all the best in this important role. A special mention to Ms. Troy for taking the lead and setting this very important group in the school.

#socialactivism #climateaction #sustainabledevelopmentgoals

Blessington Community College 2nd year CSPE Single Use Plastics

BCC 2nd year CSPE are just at the end of a research project on single use plastics. Students had to identify an audience; either a friend, peer group, family, school or community group that they wanted to persuade to change their behavior with regard to single use items, preferably non-biodegradable items.  Students created surveys, poster campaigns and social media posts. The important part of the project was that they needed to find a way to assess if the campaign had an impact or changed people’s behavior. The ideas they had were fantastic. The project made them think themselves about small achievable goals and how to go about changing behavior.

Blessington Community College 3rd year CSPE Biodiversity Research

BCC are just at the end of a research project. Students had to research a topic related to Biodiversity – specific to Ireland and report on it. They had to rely initially on newspaper sources and then expand to other research outlets. The focus was to develop an understanding of the term Biodiversity, as often the terminology is misunderstood and used in the wrong context. Students have written articles on marine life preservation, the Russborough tree planting plan, the wetlands around Blessington lake, hedgerow cutting and the use of weed killers.