An Taisce’s Green-Schools programme has teamed up with Irish Water for a seventh year to support schools working to gain a Green Flag under the water theme. The water theme aims to increase awareness of water conservation among primary and secondary school students.

In Wexford 12 schools are currently working on the water theme across the county. Students from Ballaghkeene National School, near Enniscorthy, joined Green-Schools and Irish Water to celebrate seven years of partnership. In May 2019 Ballaghkeene was named Ireland’s overall Water Primary School of the Year.

This academic year just over 97,000 students and 8,000 teachers around the country will undertake the Green-Schools water theme in their school. This year will see the return of the Green-Schools Irish Water Poster Competition and the Ambassador Programme for secondary school students. The poster competition will focus on this year’s UN World Water Day theme and asks students to create posters focused on water and our changing climate.
Cathy Baxter is the Green-Schools Manager: “We are delighted to be celebrating the seventh year of our partnership with Irish Water. The support we’ve received has allowed us to create and develop resources, events and ongoing initiatives to assist schools as best we can with their work on our water theme. The fruits of this can be seen in schools like our award-winning schools each year, who have achieved incredibly low water use and a strong school-wide culture of water conservation.”

Richard O hEadhra, Irish Water added: “Irish Water is delighted to continue our sponsorship of the Green-Schools programme and particularly the water themed flag. Through this education, awareness and action based programme we can improve and secure this precious resource that is vital to the environmental, social and economic life of this country for future generations.”