Preparing Carbon Footprint Conference With the Students of SMP 37 by Curtis Deschambault
Today, we were a large group with Bram, Danny, Mandy, the new intern from Malaysia, Pasquelle, the new intern from the Netherlands and I visiting the schools. We visited SDK Santa Theresia 1 and the children of grade 5 and grade 6 showed us how to make recycled paper from news paper we also visited SMP Negeri 37 Surabaya where I presented on the Carbon Footprint conference to the organising committee. The final place that we visited was a beach facing Paulu Madura. It was nice trip today because we used a car, lent to Tunas Hijau by the very generous mayor. He lent Tunas Hijau the car for the next two months and it is very appreciated, especially on long journeys.
The first school we visited was SDK Santa Theresia where the other interns and I talked about the environment in our countries with the children. We than followed the students who showed us how to make recycled paper. It is one of the green activities that the school does. The process is simple, first we tore up the newspaper into smaller pieces. We than mixed the pieces of news paper with water and placed the mixture into a blender, which converts the mixture into pulp. The pulp is added to another bin and must be allowed to sit for a minimum of 3 hours before used to make paper. After it has sat for the right amount of time the paper pulp is removed from the bin using a fine filter sift and gently dried with a cloth. The paper is than allowed to dry for 1 day on a wooden board and than it can be used.
The next stop was SMP Negeri 37 where I met with the students who will be the organising committee for the carbon footprint conference. I gave presentation outlying what carbon footprint is and also why this has become an issue. One of the main reasons why we are concerned about the amount of carbon dioxide we are releasing is because currently 3 times as much carbon dioxide is being released than can be absorbed. This is one of the causing factors for global warming. I also outlined their tasks, which is to do research and make an activity about their topic on carbon footprint. 29 kids were at the meeting, so they were divided into 6 groups of 4 and 1 group of 5. We will be meeting next week to go over their progress and they should have a draft of their activity completed. Therefore, next week will give us better ideal of what the conference activities will look like.
The final stop today was at a beach facing Paulu Madura. This was first time that I have been able to see the shoreline of Surabaya and it reflected the amount of garbage being thrown into the water ways. The garbage on the beach indicated where high tide would be. Bram explained that last year they did beach clean up and within two hours of finishing the beach looked like they were never there. It is very unfortunate that the beach, which is rocks not sand, is that dirty. One of the results from the amount of garbage is that the fisherman can no longer fish close to shore and must go further from shore to catch their fish. Mandy and Pasquelle will be doing some work with area around the shoreline, hopefully they are able to help the local fisherman and make the shoreline a clean place.