Primary and secondary students have been invited to get creative and take part in the ‘Love Your Wellies’ competition to highlight the importance of Irish peatlands.
Individual students or groups in a maximum of four can enter the national competition by choosing how they want to tell the story of Ireland’s peat landscape through art.
Students could, for example, tell the story of the environment and bog biodiversity, farming activity on peatlands, or the community and how people have engaged with the landscape.
The competition is part of the community outreach programme of the FarmPEAT European Innovation Partnership (EIP), which rewards farmers for environmental actions.
Art competition
Entries can be submitted until Friday, April 26. Ten entries will be chosen as finalists which will then go out for a public vote in May before a winner is chosen at the award ceremony.
There’s cash prizes for the winning entries in first, second and third place. There are different categories for different age groups, from junior infants to 6th year students.
Entries in pervious years included a comic, a story about different animals on the bog, 3D models, games, and a video, public liaison officer of the FarmPEAT project, Katie Smirnova said.
‘Tiola’ by Olivia Paczkowska from St. Colman’s National School, Mucklagh, Co. Offaly won 1st place last year for her embroidered t-shirt inspired by Clara Bog.
All entries of the 2023 and 2022 finalists can be viewed for inspiration on the FarmPEAT website. Free webinars are available to build a foundation of peatland knowledge.
Workshops and field trips
Schools can avail of free workshops like webinars and field trips for school groups to bogs in the midlands which are part of the FarmPEAT project.
The webinars explain what peatlands are, what different type of plants and animals they inhibit, and why it is important to protect them, according to Smirnova.
The project is specific to eight peatland sites: Ballynamona Bog; Clara Bog; Clonboley Bog; Cloncrow Bog; Daingean Bog; Ferbane Bog; Raheenmore; and Umeras Bog.
In a recent FarmPEAT workshop at Saint Colman’s National School, students created a food web of the different plants and animals that live on the blog.
Students learned how interconnected they are and how human activity can have a knock-on effect on plants and how that can affect the whole food web, Smirnova said.
At a previous field trip to Clara Bog, students learned how peat depth is measured, how project scorecards work, and about the importance of Sphagnum Moss as the bog builder.
One of the activities during field trips is dividing students into two groups and take turns jumping on the bog to feel the movement of the water underneath, Smirnova said.