GAP Ireland has signed Our Dúlra Agreement because we believe every school should have the support to make biodiversity part of everyday school life.
Our Nature Explorer for Schools programme invites children and teachers to see their school grounds and local parks with new eyes, and to invite nature into their teaching and learning. We have seen the difference it makes when children have opportunities to explore the natural world.
And through our GLAS community gardens, we see how growing and learning together can bring people closer to nature and each other.
The fact that we have given hundreds of students an opportunity to experience nature connection makes us very proud. And we want more students in Ireland to have access to these experiences, and for them to last. But making these opportunities a normal part of school life in Ireland takes more than what GAP can do, and more than the commitment of individual teachers. It needs support from the wider education system.
Making biodiversity a priority in every school
With Ireland facing a serious biodiversity crisis, we need to make sure that we make space for nature in every school and we need to ensure that we’re not depending on individual teachers alone to make this happen. That is why GAP Ireland is backing Our Dúlra Agreement, developed by the Irish Schools Sustainability Network and its Biodiversity Working Group for Schools.
The Agreement calls on education leaders, including ETBs, patron bodies and school trusts, to recognise the immense potential they hold to make a system-wide impact by creating a thriving tapestry of nature-rich spaces throughout the country and it calls on them to make biodiversity a priority in how all schools are led and managed. In practice, this means that nature is considered at every level of decision-making, in recognition that thriving ecosystems benefit us all.
When biodiversity is taken seriously by those leading our schools, teachers are better supported to put nature at the heart of school life, bringing curricula from STEM to Arts and Wellbeing alive through tangible connections to nature.With support from the top, it becomes easier to build on existing work and create long-lasting change.
Nobody expects school leaders to become ecologists. The expertise already exists. What matters is creating the conditions for people to work together, learn from one another and turn good intentions into lasting change. GAP Ireland, and many other organisations are ready to support schools along the way.
The challenges facing nature are immense, but schools and communities do not have to face them alone. By nurturing children’s connection with nature today, we can help create a future in which people and the living world flourish together.
As the Agreement’s authors ask: “What did we do when we knew?”
Let’s make sure Irish education has a good answer.