May 26, 2009

Preparing Video Conference At SDN Petemon 13, Carbon Footprint Conference at SMP 37 Surabaya And Mangrove Survey

by Curtis Deschambault

After everyone took the day off yesterday to catch up on sleep from the prince and princess of the environment, we were back at work today. This week we have a new intern joining us at Tunas Hijau, he is from Australia and is named Pippin. My day started off at 8:00 in the Tunas Hijau office, where I received an email from the principal of one of the schools in Canada asking to do the video conference Wednesday night. Roni sent the information to SDN Petemon 13 Surabaya and they were very happy. They requested that I go to the school to explain what was going to happen in more detail.

Arriving at SDN Petemon 13 Surabaya I was greeted by the principal and we waited for the teachers. Once the teacher was ready I meet with her to discuss the video conference call. I told her that I asked for the school in Canada to discuss what they are learning about the environment and the different green projects they are doing. I think that SDN Petemon 13 should do the same thing and show the projects that they have done. The video call is going to be around 25 minutes depending on how many questions the 2 schools have for each other. The call will also take place at 8 pm (Indonesian time), 9 am (Canadian time) on Wednesday June 3rd.

The next school I visited was SMP Negeri 37 were I meet with the organizing committee to check on their process. The students were all supposed to have the research and a draft for the activity for this meeting. However, only 4 of the 7 had done research and none had a draft for the activity. Therefore I asked that all the groups bring a draft of their activities for next week and for the groups with no research to have both done for the next time. I also answered some of the question that they had about the conference and about the subject matter.

The final activity of the day was to visit a mangrove that the town of Surabaya planted last year. We had o us boats to get to the mangrove and this allowed for me to see the some of life along side the rivers. The amount of garbage in the trees on the shore was shocking but it is because when the water gets high the branches get filled with garbage and other objects floating downstream. At the mangrove there is a shelter built for people to be able to relax and enjoy the scenery. It was very nice to get onto the river and see the different crabs and mudskippers. I look forward to getting a chance to plant some mango trees in the mud.