South park imagination land
Июль 28th, 2008
Breaking the ice on climate change
When his teacher asked the class to come up with ideas for a unit on arctic climate change, 5th-grader Vinay Vemuri initially thought he should write to the president and express his concerns about global warming.
But sitting in his bedroom one night before winter break, he decided such an extreme top-down approach just wouldn’t do.
“I realized I shouldn’t go that far,” the Hopkins School student said yesterday inside a staff break room. “I’m supposed to start small and go up.”
So in class the next day, he suggested that students write a letter to their selectmen and ask for the town to hold an Arctic Day so residents could learn how to go green.
“When he first said it, I was like, ‘Wow,’ ” said teacher Nili Schnairsohn, who has taught climate change lessons to her class and to colleague Sue Green’s students this year. “I wasn’t expecting it. We just kind of all stopped.”
Excited by the idea, Schnairsohn asked for student volunteers to write letters to selectmen, and 5th-grader Katie Pratt jumped at the chance by returning the next day with a typed draft. The classes decided to use her submission, with some revisions by Schnairsohn.
“I love animals,” she said, referring specifically to arctic denizens. “I thought if I did it, it would help the animals.”
The 5th-grader describes in her letter how animals, like polar bears, struggle to cope with arctic changes brought on by global warming caused by human-produced carbon dioxide emissions. Katie then goes on to ask selectmen to create a town Arctic Day, during which residents would be encouraged to car pool or walk, turn off unneeded lights, and recycle.
The letter was sent to selectmen last month. Chairwoman Muriel Kramer responded by visiting the classes’ recent awareness week, at which students gave up some free time at lunch to prepare posters, brochures and a PowerPoint presentation.
“I learned a lot from the PowerPoint,” said Kramer, who asked students to follow their own Arctic Day conservation efforts over April break and then come before selectmen April 29 to discuss the results and present their PowerPoint show.
“I’m very impressed they came up with the idea,” Kramer said. “It’s great for them to understand they can have a voice in government.”
In the meantime, Schnairsohn and her students will figure out a way to track the vacation data and continue to raise money for a walkathon benefiting the World Wildlife Fund, to be held May 17 at the high school track.
“I feel like they could teach a class about it,” Schnairsohn said of her classes and global warming.
For her part, Katie hopes Arctic Day is just viagra kaufen the start of a larger conservation movement in the area.
“If we could do it in one town, then other towns might notice that,” Katie said. “They might start thinking about what they’re doing.”
Vinay, meanwhile, has not given up on his original acheter reduisent des viagra generiques eus le pri ambitions. He is currently working on a letter describing the dangers of global warming to the presidential candidates.
“I just want everyone to know,” he said.
(Michael Morton can be reached at mmorton@cnc.com or 508-626-4338.)
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