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The Garden of Eden

EUTeens4Green Team

05/05/2023 19:06

💡 Description: Reducing food miles and Fast fashion. 'The Garden of Eden' is going to grow a garden in their school and start a sustainable fashion design club. They are home economics students at St. Mary's Secondary School Edenderry. The project is called "Garden of Eden". It is named after their town: Edenderry. They want to make their school more sustainable. They thought of two ways to make our school more sustainable. They are studying the impact of "Food Miles" and "Fast Fashion" on the environment and we want all students in our school to learn how to grow their own food and to learn how to "upcycle" clothes so as to reduce our environmental impact. They have already started a small organic vegetable garden using old lockers as garden beds and we are learning about sowing seeds, caring for them, harvesting them and cooking them. They are writing a cookbook about what they grow with their vegetables. They want to develop our school garden so that more students in the school will be able to use it. They want to build a greenhouse in the school, a safe gardening area, water harvesting and an indoor green wall. They want to buy sewing machines so they can use them to learn how to upcycle clothes and set up a textile upcycling club. THE SCHOOL GARDEN: As a trial, they have already started the project in a tiny area in their school. They are growing lettuce, broccoli, cabbage and herbs. They grow these in old lockers. They do not use artificial pesticides, They pick the caterpillar eggs off ourselves. They are taking photographs of our work. They pick recipes to learn how to cook these vegetables. They take photos of our work and they plan to write a recipe book to show what they can cook from the food they grow. They will make colcannon next week (Mashed potatoes and cabbage). They want to continue these activities and make sure an area of our school is dedicated to growing food. They successfully grew 2 peppers on a window sill last year, imagine what they can do with a greenhouse!! They really want to expand our garden, make it a permanent part of their school so that other classes in the school can use it. They want your help to will build a greenhouse and to build a safe gardening area using upcycled containers. They want to make herb wall gardens for the school, they think a vertical garden would be as good as it would save space. They want to try water harvesting so as to save rainwater to use in the greenhouse. They will set up a compost area in our garden. They want to grow native fruit trees beside the fencing in our school so as to increase the biodiversity of the area. They will cook these vegetables in their Home Economics class. They will continue to make their cookery books to promote what they are doing. They will run an awareness campaign in their school promoting organic gardening. They will teach all the students in the school about the problem with Food miles. They aim to get every first-year (160 students) in the school to plant one vegetable in their garden beds, one garden bed per class. They will sow tomato plants and grow them in a greenhouse and then run a competition to see who will take care of them best over the summer. They will use seaweed to organically fertilise their garden and peat-free compost. UPCYCLING CLUB They have learned that fast fashion is bad for the planet. They want to create an Upcycling fashion club. Their Home Economics teacher will help us run this club. The fist project will be to make a hanging herb garden by repurposing fabric from charity shops and what they find at home. They will learn to make old clothes into new items instead of buying clothes.
🎯 Target Group
🌱 Expected Results: They will create 5 raised beds. They will plant 5-10 native apple trees. They will create at least 1 vertical garden. They will install and use one greenhouse. About 150 first-year students will plant something in the garden. They will create an ebook showing the recipes of the food they cooked. About 900 students attending our school will see our garden and they will learn that they can grow our own food. They will create power points on food miles and on fast fashion. They will run a fashion sustainability club for one year. They will complete a biodiversity survey of the school at the beginning and end of the project.
✉️ Contact: rsharry@stmarysedenderry.ie
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