Dale goes naturally wild with the Gaels!

The páistí of all five classes in the budding Gaelscoil an Choillín had an exciting day of foghlaim agus spraoí with locally based Australian ecologist Dale Treadwell this week. Dale is a gifted educator in all matters ecological with a background in rainforest rehabilitation and so the páistí agus múinteoirí go léir learned a great deal about looking after our own little corner of beautiful Westmeath overlooking Lough Owel. On the day Dale focussed on four of our very important friends in the Irish wilderness: bats, birds, bees and butterflies.This day of exciting outdoor learning was facilitated by the Heritage in Schools scheme and gave the children great encouragement in their work towards the Gaelscoil's first Brat Glas (Green Flag).The páistí are very ambitious and hope to have earned their first flag for all their obair glas before the end of this year.Dale asked the daltaí to show him the fruits (agus glasraí) of all their gardening labours in the new gáirdín scoile which the whole school community created this year and is pictured here with Damien Mc Kenna, a dedicated parent and gardener and some of the hard working green-fingered daltaí scoile!.