Amazon forest fire v.s Kids
First class after long summer, I welcomed kids by asking, what’s going on lately? Some say Typhoon while some said Earthquake.. alright, at least they all “felt” sth from surroundings but not just some cartoon or stuff like that.
So I keep going, anyone knows what’s happening now around the world? Something REALLY BAD!! but, as I expected, no answer..
What’s Rainforest ?
Today’s theme is EGYPT – part 2. Kids who were in part 1 class all know that NILE is one of the longest river in the world. How about the other one? ya, it’s AMAZON RIVER ( I made a joke about Amazon deliver, but of coz, no one laughed LOL )
亞馬遜河 Amazon river
where are most of the Rainforests in this Planet?why?
So I represented the pictures BEFORE/AFTER of Amazon, beforehand, I introduced the concept of a RAINFOREST. Then the reasons caused the fire, what’s happening and why? Then here comes the huge discussion! ( that’s my favorite part of the class! DISCUSSION!! )
MONEY ！！
Lara : Why burn the forests for money?
孩子： Kids : Becoz they can’t cut them all, so they burn out them all so others can’t get it! (so direct & honest….)
孩子： Kids: Becoz they wanna burn the animals…(hmm…that’s a bit cruel.. )
Lara: Well, these are Consequences..but not the Reason! What you’ve said at the beginning, that’s the answer! Exactly! Money is the reason! There’re too many trees in rainforest, people can’t “make money” from it, so they want to cut off the trees and sell to some merchants, who will use the place to crops or dairy farming..etc. So, they fired to make money, do we care?
Kids: hmm…maybe…not really?
Lara: Do you know how human being can be alive? ( we breathe..? )AIR! (oxygen)
Lara: Correct! The who/what produces most of the air (oxygen)?
孩子：TREES!!
Lara : Lara: Exactly! And..where has most of the trees?
(ya..aka. 雨林) Forest! (aka. rainforest)Lara: Ok, let’s try to hold our breath for 20sec, would we?
Teacher, I can’t do it! it’s so exhausted!!
Yes! I know it’s exhausting! The burning Amazon forest provide 20% of the Oxygen to our planet! which means, every 20sec from 1.6 min Oxygen is provided by this area. If it burns out ( not even to the end, just to a certain points, then it’s irreversible ) If there’ll be not enough oxygen on the earth, then we’ll have problem to breath… so, do we care about this far away Amazon forest fire? I think we DO! and we SHOULD!
孩子們的反應很真實, 討論完後一個女孩大聲的說：
” I”ll have nightmare tonight! I’m only 8 and I don’t wanna die!! ”
Becoz of certain adults’ greediness, our kids, kids of our kids…will be suffered. Sadly, this is us, this is human being….what we can do now is, except for being passive and sad, we can at least try to be more aware of this world, of what’s happening in the planet and also teach our kids about this. Maybe, let’s cross our fingers, they can do better than us!
