Questions from Colegio America

We asked 10 people what they know about climate change: students from different classes, parents and teachers.

We wrote a summary of all the answers.

1. Question: What do you know about climate change?

The climate is becoming warmer.

The glaciers are melting.

More CO2 because of the cars and because a lot of people use too much electricity

There are floods and droughts.

Some kinds of animals and plants are threatened and are dying out.

There are more and stronger tornados and storms.

One person from secundary school we asked didn’t know what climate change is. She said: „ I think climate change is when the climate is hiking.“

We think that most people know something about climate change

2. Question: What are the concequences for our lovely Switzerland?

Most people know that it is always becoming warmer and because of that also the glaciers are melting. So Switzerland can be floated by this water, which isn’t ice anymore. But just one person knew that the mountains are in dangerous because of the missing ice. They won’t hold together anymore.

Some girls of our school who are older than us knew also that in a lot of years it will become very very cold, an iceage, and Switzerland will be covered by ice.

Switzerland will always have enough water, so it’s not so bad for Switzerland but for the other countries it will be very dangerous.

3. Question: What can we do against climate change?

We were surprised how much people knew what to do against climate change. For example always turn off the light, never leave machines on stand-by, don’t use the car (at least use a car which is eco-friendly). But we asked ourselves, if they also do, what they say.

2.a) What’s written in our newspapers?

About Switzerland:

• Lower floods

• Atomic power plant

About the rest of the world:

• Global warming

- Forest fires

- Droughts

- Storms (Hurricanes. Tornados...)

- Melting polar caps

- Rising water level -> Floodwaves

• Destruction of the rainforest

• Environmental pollution

- Leakage oil of super tankers

• Extinction of species

2.b) Our newspapers solutions

• Renewable energy

- Wind energy

- Solar energy

• Recycling

- For example aluminium

- Batteries

• Less fuel consumption

- Electric and Hybrid cars

- Less taxes for drivers with energy-efficient cars

• House isolation

2.c) The priority of the reports in our newspapers

Especially the reports about big disasters like a flood or a forest fire, which are problems which people are involved in, have got a big priority in our newspapers. Other things like the destruction of the rainforest or the pollution of the oceans aren’t very important in our newspapers.

2.d) An impressive headline

In our daily free newspaper „20 minutes“ there was an interesting article about global warming last week, and especially about the melting polar caps. Apparent they melt many faster than expected.

I can’t really remember the headline, but the article impressed me a lot, because for example polarbears won’t have any ice anymore to relax on and will drown, and in the end we wont’t have any polarbears on our planet anymore. And the melting polarcaps are the main reason of the rising water level, which is a big problem for coastal areas. And when the sun-reflecting ice is gone, there is only water left, which will get warmer and warmer, and so the climate. It’s just the beginning...

The headline was something like: „The Arctic is smelting away“

2.e) My idea for a headline

I think the best name for an article about the whole theme of climate chane would be something like: „Climate Changing - Yes it IS a problem!“ or „Why our time is running out“ Just something which shows the readers, us, that we can’t ignore our biggest problem anymore. But if it was so easy...

a)

I feel angry with myself sometimes, when I think about how careless I am from time to time. Like when I always take the bus to school, or always leave my computer on stand-by and things like that, which affects the climate.

I feel responsible for climate change, if I fly somewhere by plane. And at the same time I think I’m irresponsable, because I’m not the only one acting like that.

I hope, that some day the people in our only world will open their eyes and everyone will try to make a change.

Sometimes I am or act indifferent to climate change. But when I learn in school about global warming and really start to think about it, it scares me and I want to change more and more.

b)

Mostly I get angry with the people who don’t care at all. But I also get very scared when I hear what can happen to the world. Especially when I see a touching movie like „The Inconvenient Truth.“ I also get sad.

„ We all love our earth.

We love our water, our trees, our mountain, our animals and our vegetables.

But only when the water is clean, the trees are healthy and not dead and when the animals and vegetables are alive and haven’t died off.

Why must the earth suffer?

We must change something.

But we all alone can’t change this. We need support. We must tell our friends, family and other people what we know about climate change.

Everyone should be interested and should do something!

Why all this?

Because we’ve only got one planet!“

Yes. I belong to "WWF".

They're for a living planet.

On the 17.october this year there was in bern a climate festival where they showed how we should life to save our planet. It was in our holiday so we couldn't visit this festival. .

A few weeks before we went with our class to bern in "basecamp". There they made us attentive to the global warming and explained the consequences when we don't change anything.

summer smog and winter smog!

the snow last winter near the street was black..

now it's pretty warm for november and when it should snow it rains so when the tourists want to come skiing we need artificial snow. only very high in the mountains there's enough snow to ski on real snow.

(no answer yet)

a) - Respect our planet more

- Only use renewable energy

- Refuse vehicles that produce CO2

- Educate children more about the protection of the climate

- We wouldn't cut down trees, but plant alot

b) The past reveals that we didn't take enough care of our planet. We only thought about our

own good. We didn't realize that we were starting to destroy our earth.

It shows us that we must change.

a)My personal wish would be to have a life without things you HAVE to do. If there were only things you like to do. But with time it could be boring to chill out the whole time. One day you have to do something, otherwise you will crack! So, my real wish would be to have a job I like and where I earn a lot of money.

b)I think we really have god chances in our country to form our future in our preffered direction. So, my answer is Yes.

a)

I really like to go swimming in the lake or in the ocean. It makes me happy and it gives me a feeling of freedom.

In general I like to go to beautiful places and get to know another county in my holidays.

b)

I always find someting to do I like. But for example going swimming in the lake or in the ocean isn’t always possible for me. Because in winter, the lake is much too cold and unfourtunately we don’t have an ocean in Switzerland. To swim in the ocean we must fly to another country, which is sometimes difficult. There is also a positive point about that, because if we don’t fly in airplanes we don’t produce so much CO2, which affects the climate. ☺

We don't know much about Peru. But we are very impressed that your county is so multifaceted. You have glaciers, rainforest, and the sea. We only have glaciers, but much of them.xD. Can you give us more informations? We would like to go there for a holiday.

We don't know if you heard that, but we are very famous for our cows. They are spotted and fat. They give a lot of milk. Our food contains a lot of milk because of that. For ex. chocolate, yoghurts and a lot of cheese.

sorry we continue later.xD

In Switzerland there are still 4 seasons. But in the last couple of years the weather has changed. In 2007 February it was sunny spring weather instead of cold. Later in April it snowed. Our weather is crazy. :D From year to year it snows less.

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(no answer yet)

a)

A place that I really like is the Aare. That’s a small river below my village. In summer I am often there with my friends. Next to the Aare there are a lot of fields so it’s a good place for relaxing. I like the calm there. The Aare is bordered by trees and there are a lot of benches on the border and on Sunday we meet many old people there. We meet fishermen too. But they fish for fun. It’s funny because all weekends they are on all bridges over the Aare.

In winter the Aare is frozen. But that is rare. When it is frozen we can skate and walk on the ice.

b) The most famous person in Switzerland is Roger Federer. At the moment he is the number one in the world of tennis. The whole world knows him. I think that Roger is a good person. He is always calm and when he wins he can show emotions but he never brags. He isn’t like the other stars. Just in tennis he shows everybody his talents but his privacy isn’t for the people around the world. He is famous because he plays tennis and not because he shows everybody his family life like Paris Hilton

;-) Above all he’s a symbol of fairness.

Question 18)

a)

3 years ago my class had a terrible teacher. The teacher was very severe and mollifiable. One day a boy forgot his case at home and at this time the teacher checked sometimes our school materials. When the teacher saw that the boy didn’t have anything here she laughed and said: Now, I’ll make a school material control because he doesn’t have his things here. Hahaha… and you boy, your parents will get a letter from me!” The rest of my class was very angry about that foulness. So every one searched school stuff which they didn’t need. During one minute the boy had all schools materials which he needed. Many people from the class gave him the wanting things. At the end we were all happy save the teacher. She said: “That’s wasn’t a good encouragement. That wasn’t the good way… etc.” But we were all proud and the climate in the class was perfect.

b)

Solidarity is very important for projects like ours. A comment like this means that we are supposed to be social and we should help each other. So we can reach a big result. But everybody must be social and everyone should do something for our earth. And when somebody needs help there is always somebody here to give advice. Whenever one has this solidarity we can make a lot of progress. That’s the reason why solidarity and climate protection have a lot of things in common.

(no answer yet)

Our morning starts at about 6 o'clock. We get ready, we eat breakfast and then we take the train, the bus or/and the bicycle. At 8.15 the school starts. (then we go on with our sleep.. :-) )

After 45 minuts, we have a break during five minutes. At 11.45 or 12.40 we go eat lunch in our cafeteria (and often we do our homework). Then the school goes on. The school ends at different times, sometimes at 5 o'clock, sometimes earlier or later. Then we go home, we eat something, and then we do our homework. It depends, sometimes we have still time for us, sometimes we go directly to bed.

At school we have thee lessons sports a week, where we do a lot of different sports, but what we do often is volleyball and orienteering race.

A lot of girls in our class dance, but you can do nearly every sport you want in your free time.

We didn't know many famous persons from Peru, because our newspapers don't talk about them. So we did a research on the internet.

And this is what we found:

-Amilcar Salomón Zorilla (painter/artist)

-Yma Sumac (singer)

-Claudio Pizarro (famous footballstar)

One of our class knows a lot of musicians from Peru (for example: Eva Ayllòn)

We talk more with friends about politics than with our family. Because your friends have the same interests. Some of us can read the newspaper every morning on their way to school and then we can talk about the latest events in the world.

But most of us naturally don't talk the whole time about politics =)

We cannot elect yet and most of us didnt know a lot about the politicians and their actions. you can ask us in two years. =)

But we all like Obama!!!! ;-)