School Children Create Art Inspired by Native Wildlife from Lab Waste in STEM Sustainability Project

Clooney Goes Wild!

A red squirrel, a robin, a goldfinch and a fox now greet visitors to Clooney National School in County Clare. Made from discarded plastic, these four outdoor artworks celebrate local wildlife while encouraging us to consider the impact of the materials we use.

As an artist and educator, I worked with the children and researchers from CÚRAM to explore the connections between art, science and environmental care. Workshops on sustainability, marine organisms and plastic pollution became the starting point for a shared creative process co faccilitated by meself and Sarah Grundy, (CÚRAM’). Sarah introduced the pupils to Curam's Green Lab and invited them to work in a similiar GREEN method to the scientists.

The children chose wildlife from their surroundings as inspiration for the art pieces, expressing their appreciation for living close to nature. Through sketching, discussion and voting, they selected four animals and, over five weeks, transformed plastic collected from home and the laboratory into large-scale collages.

The relationship between material and subject is central to the work: discarded plastic becomes colour, texture and form, depicting the very creatures whose habitats plastic pollution threatens. Making these artworks offered the children a tangible way to explore waste, conservation and our responsibility towards other living things.

Now installed on the school’s outdoor entrance walls, the pieces bring the children’s creativity and environmental concerns into the wider community. They also reflect the curiosity, observation and experimentation shared by artists and scientists.

Launched by the Lord Mayor, mary Howard and Joe Cooney TD on 21 April 2026, the artworks celebrate a collective connection to place—and show how making art together can encourage care for the natural world coupled developing understanding of the challenges fossil fuelled products like plastic and energy pose to our planet.

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To read Curam's description of the project: https://curamdevices.ie/school-creates-art-from-lab-waste/

The major of Clare, Mary Howard launched the permanent exhibiton of the pieces accompanied by staff from Curam, teachers, Artist Evelyn Sorohan  parents and pupils from the school. The Clare Champion Newspaper did a lovely article on the project. https://clarechampion.ie/clooney-students-team-up-with-curam-to-create-new-artworks-out-of-rubbish/

The pupils were interviewed on local Clare FM radio: https://soundcloud.com/clarefm/clooney-national-school-curam?utm_source=Email&utm_campaign=social_sharing&utm_medium=widgetutm_content=https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fclarefm%2Fclooney-national-school-curam

Environmental learning

Following the workshops, one of the students commented “Plastics can be good for long term use items but they aren’t good for one off things. They take too long to break down, and even then they breaki nto tiny pieces that our fish and wildlife eat and that’s not good”. Another student, who experimented with making plastic from curdled milk at homefollowing the workshops, commented, "We need to invent different materials to replace oil based plastics".

Artist's Wish

To work with sceintists to give children the opportunitites to make bio plastic and to invite them to create art works using this organic material.

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