Young Environmentalist Award Winners 2026
Categories
2026 Winners
Overall Category Winners
Overall Senior Winner
GoWild
Mean Scoil Nua Leith Triuigh
Hi, we are GoWild. We chose to focus on raising awareness about the importance of the Ringed Plover, a species on the Amber List of BirdWatch Ireland. We created a learning programme and an interactive workbook to support workshops, guided walks, and talks that inform and engage people. Our project supports Sustainable Development Goals such as Life on Land and Climate Action. We are working with Maharees Conservation Association to help protect these birds and improve understanding in our community. We also visit local primary schools to deliver fun, interactive sessions for younger students. We believe young people should understand their environment and can help create solutions for a more sustainable future.
Overall Junior Winner
Wear Your Values
St. Catherine’s College
We are tackling the immense environmental and social harm of fast fashion, aiming to challenge the ‘wear it once’ mentality within our student body. Our goal is to raise awareness and empower pupils to adopt sustainable and ethical style alternatives to purchasing new clothes. The central action of our campaign, ‘Wear Your Values,’ is a whole-school fashion show. Students are collaborating to upcycle old garments, source unique finds from charity shops, and showcase clothing swaps. We raised awareness through workshops detailing textile waste statistics and promoting conscious consumerism. This project provides practical skills, shifts mindsets, and demonstrates that a greener wardrobe is achievable and desirable for everyone.
Overall Super Junior Winner
Tackling Waste in CityWise, Jobstown, Tallaght…the world!
CityWise Education
This project focused on improving waste disposal practices within Citywise and the wider local community. The young people identified incorrect recycling and the absence of a brown bin in the café as key issues affecting their centre. Their overall goal was to reduce landfill waste, improve recycling habits, and increase awareness about responsible waste management. They carried out research on recycling guidelines and bin costs, met with the CEO to advocate for a brown bin, and organised a litter pick at Cheeverstown Luas stop, with another planned for Jobstown Park. The group also designed educational posters, spoke to other clubs, and shared their work with the Echo newspaper to raise awareness beyond their centre.
Biodiversity Category Winners
Junior Biodiversity Award Winner
Wildlife Rangers
Our project focuses on monitoring and protecting wildlife on our local beaches, with a special focus on the seal colony at Roonagh Pier. We aim to improve their habitat and quality of life by cleaning the beach and placing informative posters to raise awareness in our town. Part of our work involves recording the number of seals, observing their behaviour, and noting changes over time. We will also monitor environmental conditions, helping us understand how factors like litter, tides, and human activity affect the seals and their surroundings. This project combines conservation, education, and community engagement.
Senior Biodiversity Award Winner
GoWild
Mean Scoil Nua Leith Triuigh
Hi, we are GoWild. We chose to focus on raising awareness about the importance of the Ringed Plover, a species on the Amber List of BirdWatch Ireland. We created a learning programme and an interactive workbook to support workshops, guided walks, and talks that inform and engage people. Our project supports Sustainable Development Goals such as Life on Land and Climate Action. We are working with Maharees Conservation Association to help protect these birds and improve understanding in our community. We also visit local primary schools to deliver fun, interactive sessions for younger students. We believe young people should understand their environment and can help create solutions for a more sustainable future.
Climate Change Category Winners
Junior Climate Change Award Winner
Less Fart, More Smart: How a Happy Meal for Cows Cuts Methane
Luttrellstown Community College
Agricultural methane emissions are a significant contributor to climate change, particularly in Ireland where pastoral farming plays a central role in the economy. As young people concerned about climate action, we chose to take a proactive approach by investigating practical, affordable strategies to reduce methane at source. We designed and conducted controlled experiments to test additive combinations that could influence fermentation processes linked to methane production. Beyond the laboratory, we actively shared our findings at national science exhibitions, engaged with peers and educators, and initiated conversations about sustainable farming solutions. By combining scientific investigation with advocacy and outreach, we aimed to develop evidence-based solutions and to empower others to consider innovative approaches to agricultural sustainability and the potential of feed additives.
Senior Climate Change Award Winner
‘Nitrogen Footprints’: the biggest problem you’ve never heard of
Coláiste Bride
Our project, Nitrogen Footprints: The Biggest Problem You’ve Never Heard Of, aims to raise awareness about nitrogen pollution and its impacts. It combines an educational program with a wider awareness campaign. The educational program has three parts. First, participants learn what nitrogen pollution is, where it comes from, and its effects on the environment. Second, individuals explore their personal impact using our nitrogen footprint calculator, helping them understand how their actions contribute and what changes they can make. Third, the program focuses on collective action, showing how communities can work together to influence organisations and governments. Our awareness campaign shares key information with a wider audience to spread understanding of this urgent environmental issue.
Transport Category Winners
Junior Transport Award Winner
Pareto-Optimal Transport with Environmental & Health Impacts
Athlone Community College
Urban transport systems must balance sustainability, efficiency, and public health, yet many cities are still dominated by private cars. Our project examined how different transport systems perform when these factors are considered together. Using a computer simulation, we modelled 700 realistic systems with varying levels of petrol cars, electric cars, public transport, and active travel. We applied Pareto optimisation to compare trade-offs between emissions, congestion, efficiency, and health outcomes. Only 27 systems performed well across all measures. Car-dominated systems ranked poorly, and while electric cars lowered emissions, they did not solve congestion. The strongest results came from balanced systems with more public transport, walking, and cycling, which we presented through talks, posters, and video.
Senior Transport Award Winner
Step Up for the Planet
Mercy College
Our project, Step Up for the Planet, is all about raising awareness of why using sustainable transport really matters. As young people, we’re going to be living with the effects of climate change the longest, so it’s important that we start making smarter choices now. In this project, we explore how things like walking, cycling, carpooling, and using public transport can cut pollution and reduce traffic. We also want to show that small changes in our daily routines can actually make a big difference when lots of people get involved. Step Up for the Planet encourages everyone—students, families, and the wider community—to think about the impact of their travel habits and choose greener options whenever possible.
ECO-Community Development Category Winners
Senior ECO-Community Development Award Winner
Bay South Allies
Westland Row C.B.S.
The Bay South Allies project is an active environmental initiative focused on cleaning Dublin Bay South over two months by working with schools, environmental groups, youth clubs, and politicians. Our team carried out several activities to raise awareness and support cleanup operations at Dublin Docklands and Grand Canal Dock. Materials collected during the project were used to create educational displays about waste and recycling, including a mascot costume to engage the community. We explored how artificial intelligence impacts the environment and highlighted polar bear extinction. Through designing a deep ocean cleaning machine, promoting the eco-friendly search engine Ecosia, campaigning for more bins, and studying circular economy principles, we addressed marine pollution, sustainable habits, and long-term waste reduction.
Water Category Winners
Junior Water Award Winner
Every Step Makes A Splash
Eureka Secondary School
Our Project is called every step makes a splash. This project is an awareness project to help spread awareness and support for young women and girls in foreign countries. These people do not have clean water, so they walk many kilometres every day to reach a fresh water source. They then collect the water and make the hard journey back these people often do this barefoot, and it often takes a long time. These young women and girls miss out on a good quality education. Our project includes us walking laps around our own school pitch while carrying heavy bottles of water to represent the journey these young women and girls make every day.
Senior Water Award Winner
Waste Reduction
Coláiste Bride
Our ECO UNESCO project focuses on waste, with a strong emphasis on water conservation, linking to SDGs 6, 12, and 13. Water is vital in everyone’s lives and must be protected. In Enniscorthy, we have witnessed the effects of floods firsthand, highlighting the importance of conservation. Our plans include putting up posters around the school to educate students and staff, and we partnered with Enniscorthy Tidy Towns, who generously donated water butts for our project. First-year classes will be assigned bathrooms to check taps and toilets for leaks. We will also run engaging activities in CSPE and PE classes and created a pamphlet with practical ways to reduce water waste.
ECO-Health and Wellbeing Category Winners
Junior ECO-Health and Wellbeing Award Winner
Garden to Plate
Rockbrook Park School
This project is about encouraging our school and our own communities to eat less processed food and to eat more healthily and to buy locally to also help decrease air miles. In this project we started an initiative around our school to encourage the entire school to try and eat more healthily and locally. We gave a speech at our assembly to encourage our school to eat healthier. We were growing healthy, organic vegetables in our garden and gave them to our fellow pupils so that they could try having an healthy lunch and not any processed, imported unhealthy food.
Senior ECO-Health and Wellbeing Award Winner
Sustainable & Biodiverse Sensory Garden to Support Student Wellbeing
Mount St Michael
Our project transformed an underused and overgrown area of our school into a vibrant, inclusive, and environmentally valuable space. What was once filled with dense bushes and little biodiversity is now a multifunctional sensory garden that supports wildlife, student learning, and mental wellbeing. We added gravel seating areas, flower beds, a sensory trail, and a living willow fence. Gravel was chosen for practical reasons, as it prevents mud being brought indoors and is durable. Pollinator-friendly plants were selected with advice from an Irish plant specialist at Skibbereen Garden Centre. The garden includes textured paths, scented plants, and a water feature, creating a calm space, especially for students in St. Michael’s special unit.
Food Category Winners
Senior Food Award Winner
Local Food Heros
Pobalscoil Inbhear Sceine
The project looks at the vibrant Kenmare local food scene, examining what is happening locally versus the global picture. To do this, we visited local producers, surveyed local people on food purchasing and production. We ran a campaign on the Planetary Diet – educating our fellow students on the benefits of eating for our health and that of the planet, as part of our school’s sustainability week. We worked in the school garden – growing vegetables and experiencing the benefits of fresh produce. We created a short magazine with the information we learned and we are working on a campaign to bring awareness to our wider community on the problems and solutions in our food system.
Energy Category Winners
Junior Energy Award Winner
Switch & Save
Avondale Community College
We set up our club and brainstormed ideas together, after this two of us presented our options to the principle, we then landed on the most doable option. We got into groups and Surveyed different year groups to see if they knew anything about electricity and how important it is for your day-to-day life. We also asked them if they knew any ways that could reduce the electricity use in the school. We made people aware about how they’ve been using a lot of electricity and ways they could reduce it.
Senior Energy Award Winner
Phantom Energy
Mountmellick Community School
Our project is aimed to reduce energy usage in our school. We investigated how much energy was being used by measuring energy levels around the school with an energy meter device that our Green Schools committee won for us. This helped us learn how much energy was wasted every day and why saving energy is important for our school. A key moment that inspired us to do this was when a teacher told us that laptops and projectors were left on during the Christmas break. This showed us how easily energy can be wasted when people are not paying attention. Through this project, we learned that small changes, like turning off devices when not in use, can make a big difference.
ECO-Art & Design Category Winners
Junior ECO-Art & Design Award Winner
Fantastic Plastics
Eureka Secondary School
We are called fantastic plastic because we are upcycling plastic to make it look fantastic! We tackled the 13th SDG Climate Change. Only about 10% of plastic is recycled so were teaching people how to recycle everyday products so they have the surety that their helping the planet. We are also very passionate about art. It’s amazing to make something with your own hands that not only looks beautiful but also helps our planet stay healthy. WE raised awareness by selling our recycled crafts at our school Christmas fair, and by making social media accounts. We hope to do a workshop for our primary schools once we get permission. We hoped to have inspired people to recycle more and to put a creative spin on it.
Senior ECO-Art & Design Award Winner
The Green Lesson
Crana College
As a team, we plan to create an artwork made entirely from recycled materials. We hope this will inspire our community to repurpose their rubbish, whilst also reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill. We also plan to visit local primary schools, educating them about the role we can play in sustainability and assisting them with making their own sustainable art piece. We will spread awareness on the issue through educating our local community and on a social media account. We hope to raise awareness about how people can help their community environmentally no matter their age.
Waste Category Winners
Junior Waste Award Winner
Wear Your Values
St Catherine’s College
We are tackling the immense environmental and social harm of fast fashion, aiming to challenge the ‘wear it once’ mentality within our student body. Our goal is to raise awareness and empower pupils to adopt sustainable and ethical style alternatives to purchasing new clothes. The central action of our campaign, ‘Wear Your Values,’ is a whole-school fashion show. Students are collaborating to upcycle old garments, source unique finds from charity shops, and showcase clothing swaps. We raised awareness through workshops detailing textile waste statistics and promoting conscious consumerism. This project provides practical skills, shifts mindsets, and demonstrates that a greener wardrobe is achievable and desirable for everyone.
Senior Waste Award Winner
St Colm’s Fast Fashion
St Colm’s High School
Imagine turning old clothes into brand‑new stars of the runway! Our Pre‑Loved Fashion Show is all about proving that being eco‑friendly can also be colourful, creative and seriously cool. With 90 amazing outfits rescued from wardrobes instead of landfill, we’re showing our school community that sustainable fashion isn’t just important, it’s fun! Every outfit on the catwalk can be bought, giving clothes a second chance to shine while helping us cut down waste. With support from Mid Ulster Council and NIRN, plus Big Dee DJ bringing the beats, we’re creating an event that celebrates style, sustainability and smart choices for our planet. Fashion with a purpose -what’s not to love?
Senior Waste Award Winner
From Logistical Waste to Living Spaces: The Upcycled Garden Project
Balla Secondary School
This project involved designing and building garden furniture using reclaimed pallets and other recyclable materials. The aim was to reuse waste materials creatively while developing practical woodworking skills. We made several items, including a workbench, a garden bench, and a planter. Pallets were dismantled, measured, cut, and sanded before assembly to ensure the furniture was safe, strong, and varnished to be suitable for outdoor use. Wherever possible, recycled fixings and finishes were used to reduce environmental impact. The project helped us improve our ability to use tools safely, follow plans, measure accurately, and work effectively as a team while solving construction problems. Overall, it demonstrated how sustainability and creativity can be combined to produce functional outdoor furniture.
ECO-Entrepreneurship Category Winners
Junior ECO-Entrepreneurship Award Winner
Turning the Tide on Plastic
Presentation Secondary School Thurles
Plastic pollution is a growing environmental problem, with large amounts of plastic waste ending up in landfills, oceans, and ecosystems. Our project looked at creating bioplastics as a more sustainable alternative. We first experimented with milk and banana skins, but these materials were not very successful. We then explored seaweed as a possible solution. Seaweed grows quickly, does not need fresh water or fertilisers, and does not compete with food crops for land. We collected Laminaria digitata from Spanish Point in County Clare and processed it to make a thin, flexible bioplastic similar to cling film. Our goal is to raise awareness of seaweed-based plastics and share our findings with experts at Bantry Marine Research Centre.
Senior ECO-Entrepreneurship Award Winner
Waste to Wonders
Strangford Integrated College
We are turning recycled bottle tops into fidget spinners. We are melting the bottle tops down in the oven, putting them into a 3D mould and creating fidget spinners. We then sold these, and the profit which is made (100% as there are no costs involved in the process) will go towards funding of a plastic injection moulding machine where we can diversify our products and the volume and type of plastic we can use making this project sustainability and having longevity in its positive environmental impacts. With time we aim to create other designs such as plant pots, pencil pots etc. These bottles tops are sourced from recycling organisations and also from litter picks and collections from our school site.
Further Growth Award Winners
Further Growth Award Winner
Willow Weaving
Ard Na gCraith N S
Last December, Sixth Class took part in a willow weaving project in our school grounds. The children planted living willow and worked together to create a fedge (a living fence), a willow hut, and an arboury. This hands-on project helped them to understand sustainability, teamwork, and the importance of biodiversity. As the willow grows, it will provide habitats for insects and birds while also creating a natural space for play, reading, and reflection. The children took great pride in their work, knowing the structures will continue to develop and benefit both the school community and local biodiversity for many years to come.
Further Growth Award Winner
Outdoors with the Fairies
Include Youth Service Clones YWICM
Our project transformed an old, overgrown patch of land beside the canal into a fairy village for families, children, and the wider community. Many people in our town do not have easy access to green spaces, and this area had become neglected. Our goal was to restore the space while protecting the natural habitat and creating something fun that encourages people to spend time outdoors. As a group, we cleared the site and reused materials to build fairy houses, doors, fences, and other props. Building on last year’s fairy door project, we expanded the idea to attract more visitors. The village helps children connect with nature and highlights the importance of caring for local green spaces.
Further Growth Award Winner
Gambling with the Climate
Eureka Secondary School
Our team believes that education and small daily actions are vital for helping spread awareness about climate change and getting people invested into learning about what they can do to be more sustainable. We noticed a gap for learning about sustainability in the education system as schools where not making learning fun or engaging so we developed games for children, teens and adults we translated the game into 4 languages and sent to over 20 countries. This year we aim to professionally printing the game and research about turning it into a business, we are contacting the department of education to improve education for sustainability in a more engaging way.
Local to Global SDG Award Winner
Local to Global SDG Award Winner
LightUp Kolkata: Solar Lights from Recycled Materials
Coláiste Treasa
We are students from Coláiste Treasa in Kanturk, where Transition Year students learn about global inequality and the environment through real experiences. Each year, some students visit the slums of Kolkata, India, where many families live without electricity. This makes it difficult for children to study or do homework at night. To help, we designed simple solar lights using jars, recycled solar panels, and old batteries from devices. Families in Kolkata could learn how to build and maintain these lights themselves using recycled materials. In our community, we collected used batteries, panels, and jars to build lights to bring with us in March. Our project raises awareness about recycling, sustainability, and global inequality while helping improve education opportunities.
People's Choice Award Winner
People's Choice Award Winner
Step Up For the Planet
Mercy College
Our project, Step Up for the Planet, is all about raising awareness of why using sustainable transport really matters. As young people, we’re going to be living with the effects of climate change the longest, so it’s important that we start making smarter choices now. In this project, we explore how things like walking, cycling, carpooling, and using public transport can cut pollution and reduce traffic. We also want to show that small changes in our daily routines can actually make a big difference when lots of people get involved. Step Up for the Planet encourages everyone—students, families, and the wider community—to think about the impact of their travel habits and choose greener options whenever possible.
Mentor of the Year Award Winner
Mentor of the Year Award Winner
Leo Murphy
Eureka Secondary School
