Air Pollution Goes To SMP 21, SMA Muhammadiyah 4 And SDN Petemon 13

Surabaya– Sina and I went to three schools, Thursday (29/7). One is a junior high school, one is a senior high school and last is an elementary school. Although after today’s work, I thought that every body would be feeling exhausted and had a strong desire for going back home to have a good sleep with the cold air from air-condition and a comparatively tranquil atmosphere. Because these three different schools had different characteristics and obliviously had different students and divergent kinds of minds and opinions about environmental protection. It’s plain that I came across a lot of problems and challenging hardships.

First, we went to the SMP 21，the junior high school. When the motorcycles stepped into the ground, some students stared at me and Sina, wondering that these two foreigners would bring some surprises for them. And some of the students were doing their own stuff and paid scant attention for us, wondering that they must repeat the routine about doing presentation about water pollution, air pollution, deforestation and biodiversity just like that.

When we set foot into the big plenary, all the students were clapping as they were taught to do this kind of thing. And the students were divided into two groups for me and Sina. Actually, the junior high school students cannot know what I was saying because of their limited knowledge about English and environment. So my coworker helped me to translate every detail. Some of them were not interested in our topic and kept themselves away from me and I felt a little disappointed, to be honest.

And we had a lot of pauses because of their behaviors. Then I divided my team into three groups and let them to discussed about different topics—how to reduce the garbage, how to build up the public transportation in Surabaya and how to reduce the noise in one city. I have always emphasized the conception of Shanghai Expo “Better City Better life.” Because I think this kind of conception is good for the structure of a city.

Second, we went to SMA Muhammadiyah 4, a senior high school. I assumed that this school would be better, for the English level of the students and knowledge about environment would be better in the Senior high school students. We motorcycled into the ground and thought that here must be easy. Standing in front of those students, I felt very positive. Because they could communicate with me. I did the presentation about water pollution and air pollution and then I divided them into three groups to discuss different topics.

Every groups must elect one of their teammates to be the spokesman to explain their solution to the environmental problems. They just did as what I have told them. But I still lost sense of achievements, since they pain scant passion and enthusiasm to those topics. May be they were busy with their own study. Overall, I felt obliged to broaden their horizon and give them a long-term plan about their future like never using plastic bags, walking better than cars.

At last we went to an elementary school, SDN Petemon XIII. Actually the students there totally didn’t know what we were saying. But I tried to arouse their interests and asked them to discuss and observe. And I did the same presentation about water pollution and air pollution. They paid a lot of attention to me and I felt achieved.

Above all, except the tired feeling, I felt the education was a really important step for the environment.