Young Environmentalists' Award
by Katie
A group of Ty students recently took part in the young environmentalist program through NUIG, Caherlistrane Community Council- Friends of Knockma and Innovate 21. We worked on this programme with Dr. Paul Flynn in NUIG.
As part of this program, we had to go to Knockma and collect information from all the users of the hill. We used survey sheets to do this. We asked them about the different things they would like to add to the hill and things they wished to know more about. We spent three days surveying and in total got surveys filled out from 791 people.
We then went to NUIG where we were divided into different groups. We then began brainstorming ideas of how we would improve Knockma for visitors. We came up with the idea to create fairy doors which displayed information and also has QR codes for children to be entertained while walking Knockma with their parents
All the groups then went home and created a PowerPoint in preparation for the Dragons Den day in NUIG.
On Monday the 25th February, we went back into NUIG for our “Dragons Den” day. On this day every team would present their idea and a team of judges from NUIG would pick a winner. Each team did very well and came up with amazing ideas to improve the hill.
The winning idea came from Keeva, Roisin, Sinead and Stella. Their idea was to make Knockma more wheelchair friendly by widening the entrance and creating an Ashcrete path. The runners up team had an idea to create fairy doors for the children who would walk the hill with their parent and it would be linked to QR codes and a map of the area.
As part of this program, we had to go to Knockma and collect information from all the users of the hill. We used survey sheets to do this. We asked them about the different things they would like to add to the hill and things they wished to know more about. We spent three days surveying and in total got surveys filled out from 791 people.
We then went to NUIG where we were divided into different groups. We then began brainstorming ideas of how we would improve Knockma for visitors. We came up with the idea to create fairy doors which displayed information and also has QR codes for children to be entertained while walking Knockma with their parents
All the groups then went home and created a PowerPoint in preparation for the Dragons Den day in NUIG.
On Monday the 25th February, we went back into NUIG for our “Dragons Den” day. On this day every team would present their idea and a team of judges from NUIG would pick a winner. Each team did very well and came up with amazing ideas to improve the hill.
The winning idea came from Keeva, Roisin, Sinead and Stella. Their idea was to make Knockma more wheelchair friendly by widening the entrance and creating an Ashcrete path. The runners up team had an idea to create fairy doors for the children who would walk the hill with their parent and it would be linked to QR codes and a map of the area.