Coosan Climate Warriors fight against Single Use Plastics

Primary and secondary school pupils from Athlone and surrounding areas recently came up with creative ideas for improving the environment when they took part in the Arcadia Creative Climate Awards. In the weeks ahead, we will be taking a look at their projects and findings.

Sixth class pupils from Coosan National School have been spreading awareness about the huge amounts of plastic in our oceans and the effects on sea creatures for this year's Arcadia Creative Climate Awards.

These annual awards, sponsored by Arcadia Retail Park, aim to get local primary and secondary schools thinking about how to help our environment. The competition is run in conjunction with Cllr Frankie Keena's 'Junior Mayor' initiative, and concluded this year with an exhibition and awards ceremony at TUS in Athlone in May.

Junior Mayors Harry and Fionn led Coosan's Climate Warriors in their fight against single use plastics. Their project included filming a video to spread awareness of the dangers posed by single use plastics and sending out surveys to pupils and parents alike on their use of single use plastics in lunchboxes.

“The inspiration behind this project,” the pupils wrote, “is the result of climate change and plastic being dumped into our ocean. We are trying to do whatever it takes to make a dent in climate change and global warming as a school.”

“We as a class feel the need to get rid of single use plastic, so why not start with the lunchboxes?”

The survey that pupils sent around the school to different classes asked questions such as: “Do you use/have any single use plastic in your lunchbox?”, “Do you use reusable drink bottles in school?”, and “Do you think single use plastic is affecting our environment?”

The results from this survey show that most pupils in Coosan use reusable bottles and straws. The vast majority of pupils also recognise the damage that single use plastics do to our environment.

On the results from their survey, the sixth class pupils wrote: “We were very happy to see that most pupils use reusable bottles.”

However, the survey also found that while pupils were enthusiastic about helping the environment, there is always room for improvement! “From our results we can see that many pupils were not aware of single use plastic and often had some in their lunchboxes”, the pupils concluded.

The sixth class students also distributed a survey about single use plastics to parents, guardians, and teachers asking questions such as “Do you think of the amount of single use plastic you buy while shopping?”, “Would you consider using less single use plastic daily if alternatives were available?”, and “Do you pick up single use plastic you find on the street?”

The Coosan Climate Warriors found that “most parents and teachers are aware of single use plastics and the damage that they do to the environment. They are also very concerned by this and willing to use alternatives if they are available.”

“Based on these results, we decided to try and reduce single use plastic in lunchboxes in our school.”

Sixth class pupils decided to hold a school-wide 'plastic free lunches day' and ask the school community to make a special effort not to have any single use plastics in their lunches on Thursday, March 9. The pupils designed posters and hung them around the school.

Ms Lantry's sixth class went to each class in the school in groups to present projects to their follow pupils, showing them how to reduce the single use plastic in their lunches.

“We called to each class and did a spot check on the single use plastic in the lunchboxes in that class. We also spotted some creative ways that pupils had used to bring their food to school. Some children even brought reusable beeswax wrap!”

Having initially recorded the amounts of single use plastic in lunchboxes on January 19, two months later sixth class pupils found that “almost all classes had less people with single use plastic in their lunchboxes.”

This highlights how successful the Coosan Climate Warriors have been!

At the Arcadia Creative Climate Awards, the project from Coosan NS won the award for 'Best Video'.

The founder of the Junior Mayor Initiative, Cllr Frankie Keena, sincerely thanked the schools who participated in the Arcadia Climate Awards event this year. “It was fantastic to see the level of confidence and depth of knowledge of the students on the subject matter as they explained their respective projects to the judges and members of the public. The student voice was just exceptional on the day,” he said.

Cllr Keena also thanked the Principals and staff of the schools for giving of their time to support the students with their projects.