Green-minded young people from three Westmeath schools - Marist College Athlone, Moate Community College, and St Patrick’s NS Mullingar - competed with schools from across Leinster at the regional Dragons’ Den-style ‘ECO-Den’ held at ECO-UNESCO’s headquarters in Dublin.
The Westmeath groups inspired the panel of judges with their projects, in an attempt to convince them that their group should attend the national ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards 2012 showcase and ceremony in the Mansion House in Dublin on May 8.
Locals are invited to support their favourite project in an online public poll, the People’s Choice Award 2012, at www.ecounesco.ie Voting is open until April 30.
The team from Marist College, Athlone of David Toolan, David Quirk, and Conor Byrne, looked at the ambitious prospect of creating a perpetual motion machine in the hope of replacing polluting methods of energy obtainment such as through coal or oil. The group designed and retooled a series of magnet and gear based machines, and with each refinement they continually increased the efficiency of their project. This project has already won two prizes at the 2009 Sci-fest in Athlone, and to further their research they’ve reached out to Athlone Institute of Technology for help in creating a new, plastics-based model.
Moate Community College pitched their project ‘Stop pollution, find a solution’, which was aimed at researching the causes of water pollution and identifying waste control on farms.
St Patrick’s National School, Mullingar focussed on litter and waste and worked hard to reduce, reuse, and recycle.
“The children have become more aware of how important it is to take care of the environment and are learning first hand about recycling. We are united as a team toward gaining our first Green Flag and as a result our working environment has become all the more pleasant to teach and to learn in,” commented Yvonne Skelly, St Patrick’s NS group leader.
Group members from St Patrick’s NS were Caroline Kelly, Padraig Kane, Nathan Brudell, Fiachra Heeney, Eoin Deegan, Ciaran O'Brien, Ciana Daly, Ciara-Lee Carey, Stephanie Brudell, Aiobhin Jackson, Owen McIntyre, Adam McGoldrick, Maddy Norris, Jemma Seery, Philip Reynolds, and Muir Ward.
Log on to www.ecounesco.ie and support your local youth-led ECO-Action today!
