Make a Difference

Pull the Plug on Climate Change

We Team ‘Make a Difference’ are taking part in the ‘One Good Idea’ Project organized by the SEAI. Our aim is to successfully run an innovative awareness campaign about climate change. Our chosen topic is ‘Climate Change -The Bigger Picture’ and our target audience is our peers. We have undertaken many tasks and projects to raise awareness in our school and outside in our local areas about the environment.

Team ‘Make A Difference’: Aisling McGloughlin, Emma Cooke, Ciara Dunne, Lauren Fagan, Sarah Ferguson and Gráinne Kane. Transition Year 2010.

Our Campaign:

 

We feel that climate change is a large jigsaw consisting of many pieces - the ecosystem, polar ice, human and natural influences. Although the puzzle is not yet complete, scientists agree that there are enough pieces to fit together to show that humans are having an adverse effect on our planet. We’d like to show our peers how they can make themselves part of this bigger picture by focusing on the smaller ones. As our target audience is our peers we decided to focus on an aspect of climate change that affects our age group: technology. By this we mean new technology such as iPods, mobile phones, phone chargers, televisions, computers, hair straighteners and so on. We researched how using this technology affects the world around us. For example: Chargers left plugged in when not in use account for ¼ million tonnes of CO2 per year. If everyone in the UK turned off their TV overnight it would save more than £66 million worth of electricity each year, which would floodlight 250,000 Premiership football matches! We then presented this information to our peers and asked them to do something to change it. Simple things such as unplugging your phone charger, turning the TV off standby or using a solar powered phone charger make huge differences. Another thing we encouraged our school and peers to do was to use blackle.com. Blackle is an energy saving search engine powered by Google. It works just like Google and will give the same results but it saves energy by emitting less light.

 

Our campaign to raise awareness included the following:

• A power-point presentation and speech to Transitions Years and Second Year.

• A debate amongst 2nd year English classes.

• Asking students to sign a pledge.

• Distributing fairy cakes with green icing to encourage our peers to ‘Go Green for Earth Day’.

• A Facebook page full of tips, information and photos of our campaign.

• Put up posters around the school.

• Made daily announcements over the intercom.

• A climate change quiz with first years.

• A survey amongst TYs.

We have had great response to our campaign. The debate, presentations and facebook page specifically seem to have had a good impact. Hopefully this is just the start of making our generation much more eco-friendly!

Tips:

Here are some tips on how you can make a difference:

• Turn your TV off rather than leave it on stand.
  

• Plug out devices when not in use.
  

• Use a solar powered phone charger.
  

• Switch off lights when not needed.
  

• Unplug or switch off iPod speakers or sound system when you are not using them.
  

• Recycle your cartridges.
  

• Use Blackle! blackle.com is an energy efficient search engine powered by google
  

• Recycle your electronic gadgets, including mobile phones, chargers, inkjets, laptops, computers ( or donate them to a local club or the school).
  

• Use CFL bulbs.
  

• REDUCE. REUSE. RECYCLE.

 

Helpful Websites:

• www.climatechange.ie
  

• Our facebook page “Pull the Plug on Climate Change”.
  

• www.change.ie
  

• www.epa.gov
  

• www.seai.ie

 

 

 

 

 

Loreto Secondary School, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, Ireland.
Tel: +353 1 8411594 Fax: +353 1 8412038 Email: lorbal@iol.ie