Showcasing the Biosphere Award
This section offers you the opportunity to share your stories with us. If you’ve completed a Biosphere Award project please email info@dublinbaybiosphere.ie with your details and don’t forget to include a few photos and a video link if you have one.
5th Port Dollymount Jupiter Beavers
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Based in 5th Port Dollymount, the Jupiter beaver group meets every Saturday morning at 11am. In accordance with the Covid-19 guidelines we currently spend all of our sessions outdoors. Over the recent months we have visited local parks, trekked through the dunes on Dollymount beach and even hiked from Howth Head to Sutton! During each session, we raise the beaver’s awareness of their natural environment by encouraging them to observe and connect with nature. Because of our location in Dublin Bay and our weekly scouting activities, we set ourselves the goal of achieving the Dublin Bay Biosphere Award.
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Part 1 – Explore: To experience our environment, we observed the olive-brown froglets in the low-lying marshy lands near our ‘Crows Nest’ scout den. During other trips we also identified the Six-spot Burnet moths leaving their cocoon, a skylark flying above its nest, the common-spotted Orchid and many more wildlife native to Bull Island. We were fortunate to have The Wildlife Of The Bull Island, by Proinsias Mac an Bheatha as a reference. We set the beavers a challenge of creating a ‘sound map’. We asked the beavers to sit quietly and tune in to their surrounding environment. Then, with their notebooks and pencils, each time they heard a new sound they drew a picture to describe what they heard.
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Part 2 – Learning: Our beaver motto is ‘leave no trace’. In keeping with this, we used our weekly outdoor adventures to explain to the beavers about the negative effect that litter and plastics can have on our environment. This theme formed part of the ‘taking actions’ step of achieving the Biosphere Award.
Part 3 – Taking Action: To reinforce the idea about the negative impact that humans can have on the natural world we engaged in a litter pick-up morning. The beavers learned that removing plastics and other forms of general waste can positively impact our ecosystems. The scouters and the beavers filled 5 refuse sacks in one morning!
Gaelscoil Shliabh Rua, Ballyogan
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Students from Gaelscoil Shliabh Rua, Ballyogan joined citykayaking.ie, a Biosphere Business Supporter to work towards the Biosphere Award. After spending time kayaking on the river Liffey, the students observed the impacts people are having on the river system and the wildlife that inhabits the river, estuary and bay.
Part 1 - Explore
When Kayaking on the river Liffey, these students took time to view the river, observing its turbidity, identifying man-made structures and human impacts from litter. They also took time to observe local wildlife which included primarily common bird species. They noted that the air and river smelled clean although small quantities of litter was observed.
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Part 2 - Learning
The students undertook a review of wildlife present in Dublin Bay, primarily using the BirdWatch Ireland website. Students produced detailed reports on many bird species and were suprised to learn that we have so many important species within the bay. They also reviewed the Biosphere website and Youtube channels to learn more about the impacts facing the biosphere with a view of sharing information in their school newsletter.
Part 3 - Action
Finally the students were suprised to learn about the imapcts humans and dogs are having on wildlife inhabiting the biosphere. The biggest concern was the disturbance caused by dogs by chasing birds and their waste not being picked up. Details of their concerns were shared in the school newsletter in the hope of encouraging more responsible dog ownership.
As Biosphere Champions the children will continue to learn about the biosphere and help protect it.
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The girls of Miss Roisin’s class, at Scoil Mhuire, Sandymount are the latest to earn the Biosphere Award for their efforts to learn about and help protect our seals, an important and iconic species of Dublin Bay.
The award requires children to experience nature using their senses, learn about the biosphere and take action to help protect it.
EXPERIENCE - LEARN - TAKE ACTION
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The girls of Miss Roisin’s class, at Scoil Mhuire, Sandymount are the latest to earn the Biosphere Award for their efforts to learn about and help protect our seals, an important and iconic species of Dublin Bay.
The award requires children to experience nature using their senses, learn about the biosphere and take action to help protect it.
EXPERIENCE - LEARN - TAKE ACTION
Experience: Their school is right beside the Strand Road in Sandymount. The children discussed their sightings of seals.
Learn: The children discussed potential dangers to these animals in their area. They also looked at various websites to learn about potential dangers, e.g. litter, dogs without leashes, etc.
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Take Action: The children produced a large collaborative poster to be shown on their 'Biodiversity Noticeboard' for the whole school commuunity to see and each class pod had the chance to present their findings to a different class group in order to spread the word with the children writing their own scripts.
The Biosphere Award is open to any young person aged up to 23 years of age.
Click the link below to learn more about the Biosphere Award.
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1st Dublin Fairview Scouts Beavers
We discussed as a group what we would hope to achieve from our work. The beavers decided upon some aims -
· We wanted to learn the meaning of the word “biodiversity”
· We hoped to discover the biodiversity at different locations around Dublin Bay to see what we could find!
· We hoped to find out how we could help Biodiversity to thrive in our home in Dublin Bay and carry out some actions
LEARN
Our first location to study was the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin. We visited the Botanic Gardens for a 3 hour trip in October 2021 on a bright Sunday afternoon and set out to immerse ourselves in nature and identify what evidence of biodiversity we could find.
· The beavers learned about what the word Biodiversity means.
· They used their senses to find flora and fauna in the gardens.
· They practiced the skill of identification of flora and fauna, using keys and pictures. We were helped by the expert staff of the Botanic gardens who provided us with identification packs, filled with resources!
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EXPERIENCE
Their second activity was a bat finding expedition! On foot of rumours of bats nesting in the park by our den and armed with their new observing skills the beavers set themselves a challenge to spot some bats.
· In preparation we listened to bat sounds and became familiar with what to listen out for!
· We also researched where bats lived, ate and how they moved around.
· Another preparation activity was learning how to communicate quietly with each other in the field using Morse code and torch signals!
· On a dark and clear night in early November we set out on our bat hunt in Marino green. The beavers used their ears and eyes to try to spot bats nesting or flying in the trees on the green… Unfortunately, we did not spot any bats on that occasion but great excitement was had by all.
· We discussed why bats were seen in this area recently and we studied the features of the space which would attract bats.
· We talked about the impacts on bat populations due to habitat loss in Dublin Bay. The Beavers came up with some ideas to protect the bats by preserving their habitats and providing them with alternative safe places to nest.
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Their third activity was on a sunny (but cold!) afternoon in early December. Our last Biodiversity location to study was the Phoenix park. We trekked through the park on a 3-hour hike.
· The beavers used a map and compass to find their way along the planned route and marked identified biodiversity on the map.
· A particular focus of this activity was to learn tracking skills. They used visual observation to spot animals such as deer and birds (binoculars were also a help), they listened for calls of
animals, searched for burrows and dens, sketched footprints and even studied animal droppings too!
· We looked for signs of human impacts on the biodiversity in the park and discussed cars, litter, light and sound pollution and loss of habitat in the park too.
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TAKE ACTION
The beavers had learnt so much about the amazing biodiversity around Dublin bay and they wanted to help conserve it. On a night in the scout den in January they developed an action plan to share their knowledge with the rest of their scout group so that they could raise awareness of the negative effects of some human activities on the flora and fauna in our local environment .
· The Beavers discussed their ideas, arranged themselves in groups and made various information leaflets and posters, which were displayed in the den and circulated to the community of scouts in 1st Fairview Dublin.
The beavers thoroughly enjoyed all of their studies and they hope that by educating others about the amazing biodiversity in this habitat and by communicating on ideas of conservation that they can help protect our ecosystem in Dublin Bay North.