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Green Home Travel Challenge
Some lovely stories from the Green Home Travel Challenge...
As part of the Green Home Travel Theme the children are asked to take one of four challenges and to report on their findings. The challenges include:
- Weekend Traveler Public Transport Plus
- Carpool Kids
- Get Cycling
- Walking Wonderland
The following posts feature some of the reports written by the girls of a Dublin City Centre primary school.
Ophelia
"I walked all the way to the Phoenix Park with my friend and my family. It was tough but if you keep talking you hardly know you are walking. We played football and rolled on the giant cross. It was sooo fun! I looked at the deer. It is fun because it is healthy for you and it doesn't need petrol".
Niamh
"Last Friday my friends and i were going to the park. It was the Phoenix Park and it is 10/15 minutes from my house. We are not allowed go there on our own. We went with my friends mam. We had a picnic there. We brought a sheet so we could sit on it. We brought food like sandwiches, rolls, crisps, bars and drinks and we bought a ball and a skipping rope. It was so good. We walked back and we walked there".
Meghan
"Last Saturday I went to Sundrive Park in Crumlin. I went with my two cousins. First we went to the Spar beside the park to get some sweets. We walked around the park for about 20 minutes. We sat down to eat our sweets. Then we went to the playground, we had a great laugh. We walked back around the park for 5-10 minutes. After that we walked back to my house where we had a sleep over".
Green Home Mascot Competition Winner
We are delighted to announce Attracta Doran as the winner of the Spot the Green Home Mascot Competition! We were delighted to receive so many entries of such a high standard which made judging really difficult, however a winner had to be chosen. Well done to all who entered and keep an eye on our website for future competitions.
European Week for Waste Reduction ***Harvest Seminar***
In the lead up to the European Week for Waste Reduction, An Taisce's Green Home programme organised a "Harvest Project" with the aim of reducing the amount of perfectly good fruit that is wasted each autumn because people don't notice them, people may not be physically able to harvest them or there is just too much fruit at one time.Allied to this is the considerable mileage much of the food we eat has to travel. Over the past few months local groups, schools and enthusiastic individuals have been out harvesting the abundance of fruit in their area while also mapping those fruit trees on our Harvest Map. Many of these community harvest have been documented on our Facebook page.
On the 23rd of November the Green Home team held a "Harvest Seminar" to celebrate the success of the project and to discuss the value of such initiatives in raising awareness about waste reduction and also to discuss how the project may be expanded in the future. Speakers at the event included: Professor Emeritus Michael Hennerty; Tine Ningal, PhD Candidate, School of Geography and Planning, UCD; Dr. Dorothy Stewart, Manager of Green Home Programme and Niamh McDonald, Green Home Programme Officer. Their presentations can be accessed underneath each of the pictures below. The subject matter of the presentations was extremely thought provoking and contributed to interesting discussions on waste reduction and how the Harvest Project may be advanced in the future. Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in our Green Home Harvest Seminar It was great to see such interest and enthusiasm in the project and we look forward to continuing the project into the future.
Dr. Dorothy Stewart, Manager of the Green Home programme:
The European Week for Waste Reduction and the Green Home Programme
Niamh McDonald, Green Home Programme Officer:
The Green Home "Harvest Project"
Professor Michael Hennerty, Pomologist:
Tine Ningal, PhD Candidate, School of Geography and Planning, UCD
Correspondence between CO2 emission and sequestration by Dublin’s street trees
Rethinking the City 2011
The Green Home team represented An Taisce at the Rethinking the City workshop as part of this years Convergence festival. Programme Manager, Dr. Dorothy Stewart presented on the topic of planning poilcy and strategy in Ireland during the celtic tiger era. Programme Officer, Niamh McDonald presented on the Eco Municipality concept as a potential model for future development in Ireland. Both presentations were very well received and were the source of much discussion in the world cafe conversations that followed.
Green Home Foraging Walk
Another aspect of the “Harvest Project” was the very successful foraging walk organised by the Green Home team. The walk was held on Bray Head on the 15th of October and was led by foraging experts Mary and Robert White of Blackstairs Eco Trails. The walk raised awareness about the amount of food that grows wild but that is often disregarded as a food source. Mary and Robert not only helped the group to identify various different edible herbs, berries and mushrooms, they also gave a very interesting insight into the biodiversity on Bray Head. The group were rewarded for their efforts with some of Mary’s blackberry and elderberry crumble made from berries she had foraged earlier in the week and a taste of her sloe gin!
Harvest Project
As part of the European Week for Waste Reduction, the Green Home team are organising an event that addresses the themes of waste prevention and reduction and we would like to invite you to get involved. Each year hundreds of fruit trees all over Ireland go unpicked for a number of reasons including:
1. the fact that people don't notice them
2. people may not be physically able to harvest them or
3. there is just too much fruit at one time.
In light of this, we would like to organise a “Harvest Project” with the aim of reducing the amount of perfectly good fruit that is wasted each autumn. Allied to this is the considerable mileage much of the food we eat has to travel. The project also aims to raise awareness about the value of fruit trees and local food production in terms of human health, nutrition and ecology. This is particularly important when it comes to our children as a recent study conducted by the Irish Heritage Council has shown children are increasingly detached from nature. The “Harvest Project” encourages local groups, schools and enthusiastic individuals to harvest the abundance of fruit in their area during the autumn. If you are interested in taking part in this project you can get involved by taking two simple steps:
1. Mapping the Fruit Trees and Bushes in your Area If you have noticed orchards, fruit trees or bushes around your area whether on public or private land, we would appreciate if you could map them using our Google Map: http://bit.ly/qi8ydj When mapping the fruit please pinpoint the tree as accurately as possible with a short description of the tree/bush e.g. the variety of the tree, when they are ripe, the size of tree and whether it is on public or private land. As well as being useful for the purpose of the project, the map gives a really interesting alternative perspective on the city/town or village as an orchard and indicates where there may be gaps in fruit trees.
2. Community Harvest - Link with others in your community, such as a group of neighbours or an existing network, 
to harvest the abundance of fruit in your area rather than letting it go to waste. Be sure to have the express permission of the landowner before harvesting on private land. Share skills such as preserving, baking and juice pressing when making use of your harvest. Document how your group gets on by sending us in photographs of the group at work and a few lines describing what you harvested, what you did with the harvest and who got involved. Please forward your photographs and testimonials to nmcdonald@eeu.antaisce.org
To keep up to date with the progress of the “Harvest Project” and to see people's harvest photos keep an eye on our Facebook page.
Good luck with your harvest and be sure to let us know how you get on!
