The 4th year Green School group were on a biodiversity talk and walk in Botanical Gardens last Friday.
” As part of the green schools module we visited the botanical gardens on the second of may 2025 . we attended a guided tour by mathew who talked about biodiversity .
we learned that
Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth. It is essential for sustaining the natural living systems or ecosystems that provide us with food, clean water, fuel, health, wealth, and other services we take for granted in our everyday life.
The way humans use the land and sea has dramatically reduced Ireland’s natural ecosystem
our once native oak forest, which covered 80% has been reduced to 1% today. The sea around us is seriously overfished many of our rivers are polluted and most of our bog land have been damaged through afforestation with non-native conifers.
Bees and other insects are struggling because there are so few flowers in the landscape, particularly on farmland. We know that 120 species of plants and animals have already gone extinct in Ireland .We saw first hand a tropical plant that is now extinct and is only surviving in 5 botanical gardens across the world .we saw the inside of a real Banana which has not been modified for the consumer . The seeds are like black hard stones, too difficult to digest !
we loved the connection with nature from the squirrels to the beautiful wild flower the orchid .
I am really happy that our class had this opportunity to go on this trip as we learned so much about the environment and how important it is to take care of it .
Regards
Lily Rose”