Young Environmentalist Win for Uisce Aille

The GeoparkLIFE funded Integrated catchment management project, Uisce Aille has been named as joint winner of Senior Water Award at the  ECO UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards. The awards honor Ireland’s greenest teens for their innovative environmental projects.

Over 80 groups were shortlisted from over 285 entries for the finals which took place in Mansion House, Co Dublin yesterday, (23rd May) where groups showcased their projects in front of an expert judging panel in the hope of winning awards across 10 environmental categories.

The Uisce Aille project was undertaken by Mary Immaculate Secondary School Lisdoonvarna and Coordinated by NUI Galway Masters Student Grainne Barron and is focused on Integrated Catchment Management.

The environmental education project aims to engage the wider community in the management of their local water with the secondary school students taking the lead role. The students defined and mapped their catchment identifying threats to its water quality. They then developed a programme to communicate to and engage with their wider community in its management.

NUIG masters Student Grainne Barron who coordinated the project has developed an environmental education toolkit from the process that enables other secondary schools to run the programme.  Grainne recently showcased the students work and her coordination of the toolkit at the IAH (International Association of Hydrogeologists) conference in Tullamore and to the European Geoparks Network in March this year.

The students were named as joint alongside Christ King Girls School.

for more information on the GeoparkLIFE project click here