Mayo student wins at Our Ocean, Our Plan competition

STUDENTS from 15 schools were honoured at an award ceremony celebrating the winners of this year’s Green-Schools marine spatial planning competition - Our Ocean, Our Plan.

Nine students were awarded for their posters depicting their vision for the future of Ireland’s seas and eight school groups won for their 3D models showing how they envisage our seas’ future.

James Brisson from St. Oliver Plunkett National School in Ballina won second place in the senior primary category for his 3D model.

The competition was open to schools taking part in the Green-Schools marine environment theme, which encourages schools to discover how their work on the Green-Schools programme has positively influenced people and their local environment while focusing on our oceans and seas.

As part of their work on the theme schools are asked to investigate the sources of marine litter, take part in a #2minutebeachclean and carry out a marine litter awareness survey.

The results of this survey in 2022 have shown that schools made great strides in learning about marine issues, increasing their knowledge of reasons why marine litter is bad for the environment from 44% to 85% and strengthening their awareness of the ways in which climate change affects the marine environment from 35% to 74%.

Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Peter Burke, celebrated with schools at the award ceremony.

He said: “Students have led the way in many environmental initiatives and their generation is the first to acknowledge and take steps to combat the severity of the climate crisis on a widespread basis.

“I’m delighted with the overall high standard of the many entries received, and I think it is great to see such high levels of interest in our marine from so many of our young people.”