'Biodiversity in Schools' are tremendously excited to officially launch the Nature Hero Awards - Ireland’s first, standalone outdoor learning award for schools. Proudly supported by Glenveagh, the Nature Hero Award is a mark of excellence for a school that recognises exceptional work by students and staff to help nature.

Upon registration, schools will receive a biodiversity checklist to complete, including everything from practical tasks such as hanging bird nest boxes to ensuring outdoor teaching time each week. Once the checklist has been successfully completed, schools will submit their application to achieve the plaque and certificate. One lucky school, demonstrating exceptional leadership in nature conservation, will win a garden makeover to the value of €10,000, courtesy of the Glenveagh Greencare team. 

Speaking about the partnership with Biodiversity in Schools, Glenveagh CEO Stephen Garvey said:
“Here at Glenveagh, we understand the importance of biodiversity and the vital role it plays in local areas. We are always striving to protect and encourage the biodiversity in areas that house Glenveagh developments, and so are incredibly proud to support the Nature Hero Award. We hope that these awards will help to celebrate the already brilliant work that is being carried out in schools across the country and encourage even more young people to foster and protect biodiversity within their local communities.”

Commenting on the initial success of the new initiative, Director of Biodiversity in Schools Mark Nolan said:
"We've been overwhelmed by the response of primary schools across the country. In just a matter of days we exceeded even our own expectations. Every county across Ireland is represented and we are fast approaching our capacity of 200 schools, over 40,000 students. It's so encouraging to see such an appetite for biodiversity action in our schools and we're delighted to be part of empowering that."

'Biodiversity in Schools' are delighted to announce our partnership with Applegreen on their exciting, new 'BioDive' competition.

Applegreen are offering primary schools throughout Ireland the opportunity to win an amazing €10,000 for the creation of a biodiversity garden at their school - assisted by us. There are also 134 other prizes available including our school workshops and biodiversity resources.

Taking part is going to be really fun - and educational! Claim your beautifully designed classroom nature poster and collect all 120 exciting species stickers from Applegreen stores to be in with a chance of winning.

This is not just a competition but also a wonderful opportunity to build a fantastic classroom resource and learn all about Irish biodiversity. We thoroughly enjoyed designing them for your students and we know they'll love them.

Just 124 primary schools can be chosen to take part and the closing date for registration is February 4th 2022. Full T&Cs are on the Applegreen website here.