Millennium Project


Our Millennium Project
by Rónán Cooney.
The children with their oak saplings
We wanted to do something special to mark the Millennium and we were very happy when our teacher told us that a lady from the People's Millennium Forests Outreach programme would be coming to our school and that she would help us to collect acorns and plant them. Her name was Orla Fahy and when she visited our school, she talked about the trees and asked us questions about the wildlife in our area. She showed us a video and told us about the place in Kilkenny where young oak trees have been planted for the Peoples Millennium Forest's Programme.
Then all the children and the teachers went on a bus to Derrygill Wood in Woodford and we collected acorns there. Orla told us that people will be coming to Woodford to find out where their millennium tree is planted. These millennium trees are planted in Rosturra Wood and Derrygill Wood near Woodford, Co. Galway. (Click here to find these places on the People's Millennium Forests website).
Orla took us on a nature walk and we saw lots of trees, plants, berries and acorns. Orla identified most of the trees for us.

From little acorns, big oaks grow!
When we got back to the school Orla helped us to plant our acorns in the empty milk cartons and pots. She told us to put two acorns in each pot in case one didn't come up. Then we watered them and placed them on the window sill. Orla said that she would come back in the summer to see our baby oak trees. During the winter and spring, Danielle's job was to water the plants every second day. One day in spring when she was watering the plants, she called the teacher over because little shoots were beginning to appear!
All the children were excited and almost every morning after that we use to come in and check to see if our saplings had grown overnight. By Easter we had lots of baby oak trees growing in our school! Orla came back to visit us in May and she said that our school was the only school where all the acorns had grown! Every child had their own baby oak tree and we had to transplant them into bigger pots. We hope that all our oak trees will grow tall and strong and will live until the next Millennium!

Our school is one of the schools featured on the People's Millennium Forests Website.
Click here to view the page.