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Displaying items by tag: European Blue Schools

The Marine Institute’s Explorers Education Programme is pleased to be included in the publication of the European Blue Schools handbook for teachers.

This handbook was recently released as part of the launch of the European Blue Schools project’s Find the Blue challenge, led by the EU4Ocean Coalition and supported by the European Commission – DG Mare.

“The Explorers Education Programme is among a number of leading outreach programmes in Europe that is recognised for greatly contributing to the promotion of environmental education and ocean literacy,” Evy Copejans, coordinator of the European Blue Schools programme, said.

“The Explorers project Our Ocean - Marine Legends, Fairy Tales and Folklore in Ireland, that was selected for the European Blue Schools handbook for teachers, features children's poems and artwork that were inspired by Irish marine legends and folklore around the coast of Ireland.

“It is a wonderful project that demonstrates the human connection with the ocean, and is an excellent example of how teachers can Find the Blue and use this project for inspiration.”

Speaking about the children’s work on the Our Ocean project, Explorers’ Cushla Dromgool-Regan said: “Engaging in stories from the Salmon of Knowledge to the adventures of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, as well as new tales from different counties, the children were able to gain an appreciation of the influence the ocean has had on their local areas through history and storytelling.

"With a wide range of STEM and STEAM projects resources on the Explorers.ie website, we would be delighted to see teachers use the Explorers projects for inspiration and also use this as an opportunity to take part in the European Blue Schools programme.”

The European Blue Schools project covers five strands that schools can select to take part in. Students are encouraged to also learn outside the classroom about real-life topics related to the ocean, to experience the world actively and develop a wide range of social skills, solution-oriented and creative thinking, that support the classic school skills.

Published in Marine Science

New York Yacht Club’s biennial Invitational Cup

Ireland has a proud history in New York Yacht Club’s biennial Invitational Cup, with Irish participation from the very start and a podium result in 2019.

In 2009, two Irish Clubs,  Royal St. George in Dun Laoghaire and Royal Cork in Crosshaven, entered into New York's newest sailing competition that was reminiscent of Newport’s America’s Cup days when 19 yacht club teams from 14 nations descended on this “City by the Sea”.

The Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup is a competition between yacht clubs, with strict eligibility rules ensuring that each team is comprised exclusively of amateur sailors.

The competition, which was first run in 2009, has drawn entries from 49 clubs from 22 nations on all six inhabited continents.

The New York Yacht Club won the inaugural event in 2009, with the Royal Canadian Yacht Club winning in 2011 and 2013, England's Royal Thames Yacht Club winning in 2015 and Southern Yacht Club from New Orleans winning in 2017.

In 2019 the regatta was sailed for the first time in the New York Yacht Club’s fleet of IC37 yachts, and Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, from Australia, became the first Southern Hemisphere club to win the trophy. And it was in this edition that Anthony O’Leary’s Royal Cork team took the bronze medal.