The Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin, is hosting an exciting and educational showcase, Planet Aqua. Live seahorses, clownfish, starfish, dogfish, crabs and lobsters are among the main attractions, alongside a digital learning station to "Follow the Fleet", a series of costumes for interactive roll play, and many more exhibits. This non-profit Irish initiative will inspire primary school children into action to protect our planet's most valuable resource - water. Lord Mayor Cllr. Catherine Byrne & Eanna ní Lamhna, Environmentalist and Broadcaster, will officially launch the event on Wednesday, 22 February at 9.30am at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
The event opened its doors to school groups, Monday 20th February. The initiative, co-ordinated by AQUA TT - the Aquaculture Training and Technology organisation - consists of two pilot exhibitions, a teacher's manual and a website at www.planetaqua.ie . The exhibition is designed to stimulate young visitors to investigate the role of water on the planet through a virtual scientific "mission under sea", showing how we interact with water, how it benefits us and how life would be impossible without it. Equipped with "logbooks" and ponchos, school groups are divided into investigation teams to circulate 9 learning stations where mentors at each station explore the key ideas with groups. Online pre-registration is required for school groups and the registration facility can be accessed from www.planetaqua.ie.
There are a limited number of spaces still available. The event is open to the general public on the 25th & 26th from 10am to 4pm - admission is free and children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult. The exhibition will close on 1 March. The many chilling global and regional aftermaths of the tsunami of 2004, Hurricane Katrina and the resulting floods in New Orleans in 2005, have raised a host of questions about human impact on climate change and the aquatic environment. "With more than 7,500 kilometres of coastline, a seafood industry employing more than 15,000 people, the undertaking of a National Seabed Survey and the advent of the Water Framework Directive, to name just a few, the children of Ireland have good reason to learn more about water " said Mark Norman, Planet Aqua Steering Committee Chairman and Director of AquaTT.
Planet Aqua provides 5th and 6th class teachers with user-friendly support material that will enable them to explore and incorporate aquatic examples into the classroom. The resources and concepts are firmly grounded in the primary Social, Environmental and Scientific Education (SESE): Science curriculum. Planet Aqua is organised by the AQUATT organisation and supported by the European Union, Discover Science and Engineering, the Marine Institute, the National Centre for Technology and Education, BIM, the Primary Curriculum Support Programme, the National Centre for Curriculum Assessment, the EPA, the Central Fisheries Board, An Taisce, Irish Water Safety, Taidghe Mara Teo and the Lifetime Lab.
ENDS.
CONTACT
David Murphy , Phone: 086.858.2487, email: david@aquatt.ie
Erin McVeigh, phone: 087.289.0919, 01.644.9008 email: erin@aquatt.ie
www.planetaqua.ie "About" section
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The launch of Planet Aqua in Dublin will take place at 9.30 am, 22 February at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Military Road, Dublin 8. Guests of Honour: Lord Mayor of Dublin & Eanna ní Lamhna.
2. The Royal Hospital Kilmainham is wheelchair accessible.
3. Planet Aqua was already well received in Cork, hosted at the Lifetime Lab, Old Cork Waterworks, Lee Road from 1st - 10th February. More than 1,200 school children from across Cork County visited as part of school group tours and another 1,000 were in attendance at the weekend.
4. The Planet Aqua teacher's manual will be delivered to all 3,278 national primary schools in Ireland in the coming months. The pilot exhibitions will reach up to 6,000 children. The website will soon provide an educational virtual exhibition for students and a teachers' resource centre, which can be readily accessed with the rollout of broadband to classrooms nationwide or from home.
5. The main challenge for water quality in Ireland is eutrophication (oxygen depletion arising from excess inputs of phosphorus from all sources). The extent of eutrophication in the river system has been increasing consistently since the 1970s and has been identified by the EPA as probably the most serious environmental pollution problem in Ireland (Water Framework Directive, Ireland)
6. You can waste up to 5 litres of water every minute by leaving a tap running; a washing machine or dishwasher cycle uses up to 100 litres of water; a dripping tap can waste up to 30 litres of water per week and brushing your teeth with the tap running wastes almost 9 litres per minute; a bath alone uses up to 80 litres of water, flushing the toilet can use up to 13 litres of water and a washing machine uses 80 litres of water per cycle whether it is full or not (Sustainable Energy Ireland)
7. In May and June 2004, AquaTT arranged for a selection of students from two schools from Cork, Scoil Eoin and Scoil Mhuire, to travel to the Algarve region of Portugal, where they participated in a week of activities, such as investigating the environment, learning about conservation, and sharing information about Ireland's environment with Portuguese students. These students will be on hand at the launch in Cork.
8. A roll-out of the Planet Aqua exhibitions and sustainability of the website and teacher's manual will depend on the availability of public or private funding in 2006/7.