Stars and STEM Stories
Earthly Poetry
GLOBE students from six countries have contributed poems and essays to a book on the importance of clean air. This work is part of the United Air Fund, a Dutch initiative on worldwide CO2 management.
The writings are simple and sweet, serious and funny, long and short. The book will be available to participants in a climate change conference in the Hague, the Netherlands, this coming November. The conference continues discussion and studies begun by the Kyoto protocol.
In addition to Dutch GLOBE students, the writers are from schools in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and the United States, and from an Ecuadorian GLOBE partner. Samples of contributors' work follow; for more quotes and more information on the conference, visit the Dutch GLOBE web site at www.smeglobe.nl and click on the "actie" button.
From 12-year-old Ana Leskovic of OS Matije Gupca, Gornja Stubica, Croatia:
Air is here, air is there. Air is everywhere. Clean or unclean, fresh or unfresh, air is everywhere.
And this poem from Zakladni skola, Namesti Interbrigady, a school in Prague, the Czech Republic: Man, save clean air, It needs your care! Little clean air needs often health care!
Shannon Agresta, age 11 from Springford Intermediate School in Royersford, PA, asks: Roses are red, Violets are blue. If we don't take care of the air Will that still be true?
This excerpt from a poem by Michal Kuliga, age 13, Poland: The smell of CO2 makes me ill because I know it will eventually kill all living creatures. It is one of CO2's worst features
Do not protest - Clean air is the best. Don't agree to anything less Because your lungs will be a mess.
Mijke, Nicole, Christel, Arnoud, age 15 wrote: Zonder lucht zouden we hier niet staan! Laten we beter met het milieu omgaan!
Ecuadorian scientists, including chemists, geologists and economists, also testified to the importance of clean air. Maria Loreto Encalada, a geologist, put it simply and succinctly: "If clean air disappears, so will all of us!"
The spirit of the writings was captured in the introduction to their section by GLOBE fifth- through seventh-grade students from Innoko River School in Shageluk, Alaska, US. They wrote, "We are students from a very remote part of Alaska inaccessible by car. We appreciate the clean air we have but know we could do better."
For more quotes, see http://www.smeglobe.nl/boek/hoofdstuk.ws?boek_id=1&hoofdstuk_id=13.