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The Environment
 Realt Na Mara Junior School has a very active environmental policy. As a staff we are very environmentally aware and each teacher ensures that the children respect their environment by keeping their classrooms tidy and using the paper and compost bins provided.  In the Louth Authorities Primary Schools Competition 1999, our school won its category award in its first year of participation. The following year, we made history again when we were the first school from Dundalk to win the overall Urban Award. Our Reduce, Reuse, Recycle programme is proving to be very beneficial to staff, pupils and parents alike. We embarked on this programme and gained the Green Flag for our school. All classes participated from infants to fourth class. These are but a few examples of the projects for the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle programme.
 The mural in the school yard.  Fourth class cleaned the area around Seatown Castle of litter and brought it to the recycling bring bank in Barrack Street.  Art work using recycled materials by 3rd and 4th class. As the Civic Amenity Centre recognised our efforts for the environment, we were invited to the official launch of their recycled bus. The bus itself is made from recycled materials.
 Our Green Flag
We have received a lot of publicity in both the local "Argus" and "Democrat" newspapers. Features have been written about our official Green Flag raising cermony; Seatown Castle clean up and meeting the minister at The Civic Amenity Centre. We also joined the St. Patrick`s Day parade to publicise the`Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' slogan with the Local Authority.
 We were awarded a second Green Flag for our energy awareness programme. Our aim here was to raise awareness of how to save energy. Posters on energy saving ideas, painted by the children, were placed in the school corridors.
 The children are encouraged to to use their knowledge of energy saving ideas in the home
Third class visited the wind turbine at D.K.I.T. to find out about an alternative source of energy.
 We were awarded a third Green Flag for our water awareness programme. We decorated the school with colourful posters to spread the message on the importance of water conservation.
The Infant classes learned about conserving water by putting a plug in the sink. They used the slogan 'Think at the Sink!'
  First and Second class did lessons about water conservation, the water cycle and did science experiments about water. Second class made their own water cycle wheels.
 Third and fourth class took part in a survey to examine how much water was being used carrying out different activities at home. ACHIEVEMENTS TO DATE Louth Local Authorities Environmental Awards 1999 Best Newcomer Dundalk Urban District Council 2000 Overall Award Dundalk Urban District Council 2001 Second Place Dundalk Urban District Council 2002 Second Place Dundalk Town Council 2003 First Place Dundalk Town Council 2004 Overall Winner in Dundalk Urban Area 2005 Overall Winner in Dundalk Urban Area 2006 Platinum Award Louth Local Authorities 2007 Platinum Award Louth Local Authorities 2008 Platinum Award Dundalk Urban Area 2008 Michael Mullen won overall Environmentalist of the Year Award 2009 Overall Winner in Dundalk Urban Area 2009 Platinum Award Louth Local Authorities In the Junior Environmentalist Award 2006 Cormac White was awarded the runner up boy, and in 2007 this same award went to Joseph Mullen.In 2009, Hilary Mc Cahill was highly commended in the Environmentalist competition. In recognition of her dedicated work, teacher Maureen O`Donoghue was awarded a specially commissioned piece of jewellery. Environmental News We at Realt na Mara Junior School endeavour to foster a respect for the environment and an appreciation of the need to look after it in both our staff and pupils. Every summer, pupils are involved in a clean-up action day of the school grounds. Our school is a litter free zone and pupils are encouraged to bring lunch boxes and reusable bottles to school. Pupils take turns at being litter wardens. We also take part in the National Spring Clean. We have a compost bin in our school yard and we recycle all our fruit and vegetable waste. Classroom bins are segregated into paper/compost and general waste. Every year we have a 'Recycling Week' in the school with colourful displays, lessons and competitions. Recycled materials are used throughout the school in many art lessons. We have collected and recycled mobile phones from the school community in September and will be recycling ink cartridges and clothes in October. Each year our school takes part in the local authority Christmas decoration recycling competition with great success. We have just begun our efforts towards our fourth green flag from An Taisce on the theme of travel. Our green School co-ordinators will be attending a Green School's teacher training workshop next week on this theme and we hope there will be lots of ideas and initiatives that we can implement. So far we hope to organise a 'walking bus' to and from school and to host cycle safety workshops in school. We have adopted Guzzler from SEI as our energy saving mascot. Pupils often prompt teachers to switch off lights and turn off computers. Energy saving light bulbs and draught excluders have been fitted. Since switching to Airtricity and as a result of our energy saving efforts we have saved one third of our energy bill. Our most recent Green Flag was awarded as a result of efforts to reduce our water comsumption. We estimate we save approximately 43,000 litres of water from June to September every year by placing plastic bottles in our toilet cisterns. We also have a rain butt which we use to recycle rain water. We adopted Conservation Kid from taptips.ie and used him to get the message of water conservation across to our younger pupils. Pupils in fourth class composed a 'Tap Rap' which spread throughout the school and which was recently aired on our local radio station LM/FM along with an interview with our green school student committee members. Last year we planted twenty trees donated by the local authority in our new green field. A project was carried out on the interesting bird life to be found on the school grounds. We hope to purchase a new bird table this year. Over the past six years we have won the top environmental award for schools from our local authority and this year our pupil won 'environmentalist of the year' an achievement we are very proud of.
Louth County Council Local Environment Awards June 2009 This year we are very proud of our achievements in the Louth County Council Environmental Awards.We are the overall winner in the Urban District Area for the fifth time.
 We have also won a Platinum Award for our effort in maintaining the appearance of the school, litter and waste management and energy reduction.
 Hilary McCahill from 4th Class was highly commended in the Environmentalist of the year competition.
Sister Leonie was given a special gift in recognition of her efforts over the years in promoting environmental issues within the school. We are particularly delighted to have done so well in this years competition, as we feel it is a fitting salute to our retiring principal Sister Leonie.
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