This story was a group project from 4th grade students in Taiwan, who were challenged to create a fictitious story based on the commonalities of their own experiences from our “Leadership and Global Impact” prompt through The Sharability Project.
[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9-gyjr2ysE’]Once upon a time there were kids from an elementary school walking to school. Then they saw smoke coming out of the factories and chimneys in the neighborhood. They put their hands over their nose and mouth because the smoke could make them very sick. Suddenly, two teenagers named Tiffany who is very helpful and Chelsea who is very fair and caring walked by the factories and saw what was happening.
Tiffany said, “Air pollution can result from both human and natural causes.”
Chelsea said, “that the long tubes called chimneys that stood high into the air were polluting the air with the smoke and fumes that were coming out of them.
“We need to do something to help future kids not have to breath such bad air” said Tiffany.
The girls decided to talk to the factory owner about using more natural resources that created less pollution in the air. At first the owner was not happy but after several discussions he finally agreed.
The next day Tiffany and Chelsea went to the lake where they used to go fishing. However, when they arrived they saw dead fish floating around and trash all around the lake.
“This is terrible!”, exclaimed Chelsea. “People throw trash in the water and garbage trucks sometimes even throw trash into lakes, ponds and even oceans. Sometimes boats spread oil and trash all around the ocean. The fish and ducks are dying because of it.”
They decided to organize a public clean up and invited everyone in the neighborhood to help. The news came to cover the story which inspired other people to clean their neighborhoods too.
Jack, Max and Steven were Tiffany and Chelsea’s friends. After they saw the lake clean up on the news they decided to see what they could do about the logging going on in the forest. They decided to go on a hike.
“Did you know that recycling a ton of paper saves 17 trees and recycling half the world’s paper would save 20 million acres of forest land?” Suddenly they heard the sound of saws chopping down the trees nearby. They ran to the location and shouted, “Stop what you’re doing over there!” But it was too noisy.
Jack told Max and Steven, “We need to tell the government because this is a big problem that needs to be addressed in order to be fair to the people and nature in the area. The government decided to decrease the amount of trees that could be chopped down in the area each year. Jack, Max and Steven decided to plant saplings in area where the loggers had chopped down the trees. They hoped the next generation of trees would survive against the loggers.
Extra facts about polluting:
Air pollution
1 Cars and heavy duty trucks, trains, shipping vessels and airplanes all burn lots of fossil fuels to work.This is a major cause of pollution,and one that is difficult to manage.
2 Air pollution affects kids more than adults because, for their body size, kids breathe more air and spend more time playing outside.
.
