St Louis Monaghan Town Transition Year students were featured in the local newspaper!
Read the article right here:


St Louis Monaghan Town Transition Year students are Design Thinking the climate crisis through Monaghan Integrated Development’s Innovating Communities project. Their focus has landed on waste as they experience an excessive use of plastic in school. As a team, they designed a survey to aid their research and gain insights from other pupils on the topic, referring back to their aim ‘To reduce plastic use in schools’. Alongside the survey, they created a ‘curious object’ which was produced in the form of an art piece, prompting interest from their peers and guiding them to complete the survey.

 Just before the mid-term break, the students and trainer met in person to look at the survey results and delve further into the process. The enthusiasm and creativity of the students was in full flow as they distilled the results, ideating and presenting their ideas to each other through art, verbal communication and considering the types of people who may engage and be affected by the challenge. The students will continue to work through their ideas, facilitated by the Innovating Communities Trainer, with a tangible and effective outcome in their sights – watch this space! 

Adrian Fitzgerald, the Transition Year coordinator, recommends the project to other schools to participate; ‘I would highly recommend that other groups get involved! The girls have enjoyed the sessions with Rhona, the trainer, and the various creative thinking exercises and discussions. We look forward to getting involved again next year!’

The students are delighted to participate in the initiative which offers free training and mentoring in Design Thinking, a creative problem solving process that can be used to tackle local Challenges and develop communities while building the student’s confidence and capacity to overcome challenges. When one goes through the process, they can reuse and apply their Design Thinking skills repeatedly to future opportunities and challenges.

The school’s fellow students and colleagues at St Macartan’s College have also been using the process to focus on sustainability for the purpose of their Innovating Communities Course with the expectation of taking their Design Thinking learnings in their individual applications for the National Student Enterprise Programme. 

If you are interested in participating, you can get in touch with Collette at cmcentee@midl.ie / 087 176 1732 and or visit www.innovating.ie.