STUDENTS from 11 schools in north and south attended a conference on recycling and community action hosted by the US ambassador, Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith, in Dublin yesterday.
The conference was part of the international celebration of Earth Day, and its aim of raising awareness of environmental issues. All the schools represented in Cork, Dublin, Offaly, Meath, Tyrone and Fermanagh are involved in the GLOBE school programme started by US Vice-President Al Gore three years ago.
During the conference, at her official residence in the Phoenix Park, Mrs Kennedy Smith read a message from Mr Gore in which he congratulated the children on being part of an international initiative which had contributed cover 500,000 science observations to the GLOBE student data archive and would "contribute significantly to our scientific understanding of the Earth".
She quoted the US astronaut Dr Rick Linnehan, who visited Greendale Community School in north Dublin last month to publicise Earth Day. He said that from space he had seen the blue of the Mediterranean surrounded by pollution.
Each school set up an exhibit of a recycling project it had undertaken, ranging from compost bins and local opinion surveys to models made of waste paper and plants.
Children from Dervaghroy primary school - a 29-pupil Protestant controlled school near Omagh, Co Tyrone sang the ambassador a recycling song, Milk Bottle Tops and Paper Bags. Their teacher, Ms Nancy Thornton-Smith, said the event made them "feel part of something really big and exciting".
Irvinestown in Co Fermanagh was represented by its local Catholic and Protestant primary schools, which have a close working relationship.
The conference was also addressed by Dr Micheal Cotter of Dublin City University, who is the GLOBE school co-ordinator for the Republic of Ireland, and Ms Marie Martin of the Western Education and Library Board in Northern Ireland.