What Green Schools Travel Means To Me

James and Lucy are neighbours. Lucy lives a little further down the road though.

James gets up at seven o' clock every morning. He has his breakfast and is off to school. He meets up with his friends and talks to them on the way.

On a typical day, they saw the sun rise over the hill and a baby fox trying to cross the road. There was so much traffic, the poor little fox tried to cross the road but nearly got hit by a car! "Why don't people watch out?" said James. "I prefer to walk to school because you get exercise and fresh air too. Just look at the scenery also. Can you see the fumes coming out of the exhausts? That can't be good for the ozone layer".

Lucy got up to eat her breakfast really fast because her Dad was waiting for her. She got in the car with her Dad and put on i102-104, but then her Dad changed it to the news. "But Dad!" complained Lucy. "No buts" replied her Dad. It's good for you. Then Lucy cleared her window of condensation. She saw other kids cycling and walking with their friends. And she was stuck in the car with her boring Dad listening to the news. Suddenly her Dad braked. "What was that?" she said. "Just some fox" her Dad said. "Is it okay?" she cried. "I don't care"! "I just want to get to work on time, but with this stupid traffic you can't"! "Why don't I walk to school?" asked Lucy. "You can't! It's too dangerous and you could catch the flu quite easily too." But Dad!" Lucy whined, "What did I say Lucy... no buts! shouted Dad.

James arrived at school on time and came first in the race at P.E. As for Lucy, she was late again and got into trouble again. She trailed in last in her race.

Sorcha Ní Mhaolagáin

 

 

What Green Schools Travel Means To Me

My name is Sinéad and I'm in sixth class. My school participates in the green schools scheme and this forms a fundamental part of my life. The travel theme is the fourth theme of green schools. There are one hundred and sixty five schools going the green schools project in Mayo.

These days there are a lot of problems with travel. For example, If everybody takes their cars to work and schools the roads will be busier. Every forty litres of petrol or diesel that we use results in one hundred kilogrammes of greenhouse gases being emitted. This in turn leads to climate change. Climate change is when greenhouse gases add to the layer of insulation around the earth. this results in a rise in the earth temperature which contributes to global warming or climate change. This affects us because it leads to unpredictable weather conditions such as flooding and storms.

Another consequence of travel is if everybody drives to work and school people will become unfit. This inturn leads to health problems and increases the pressure on our health system. Noise pollution is also a direct result of increased traffic on the roads.

There are also many difficulties associated with travel such as dangerous weather conditions and bad roads which lead to car accidents and increases the risk of pets and wild animals getting killed on the road.

There are also ways we can prevent these problems from happening. For example, instead of taking the car we could car-pool. This keeps us fit and healthy and reduces the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted. Avoiding acceleration and heavy braking can help save your fuel costs as well. The next time our parents consider buying a new car we should encourage them to check the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and buy a more efficient car.

There is no easy way of overcoming climate change. It's going take many years of hard work by our goverments, and everybody working together and becoming more aware of our envirorment.

Sinéad ní Gamhna

 

 

 

TRAVEL

The definition of travel is to change location, to undertake a journey, to move around or to wander. Travel is the movement of people between relatively distant geographical for any purpose and any duration, with or without any means of transport.

Travelling is obviously bad for our environment, but were would we be without it. For example if we didn't travel we wouldn't be able to go on holidays to foreign countries and we wouldn't be
able to experience different cultures or food. We couldn't drive to school or the shops during the bad weather.

The disadvantages of travel are the dangers to human beings and nature People and animals get knocked down on the road every day. We should have safe tracks on the roads all over town for bikes to be cycled on. There should be a few bike stops around the town. It might encourage people to to cycle into town, and there will probably be fewer accidents on the roads.

Also all the air pollution caused by different modes of transport is damaging our environment.

New roadways and railway tracks are constantly being built to cope with the extra traffic. This is eating up our country side. Animals habitats are being destroyed. How many dead badgers, hedgehogs, foxes, and other wild life can you count on our roads? TOO MANY!

What is the solution? I have a few suggestions: A lot of half empty cars make the same journey every day. With a little planning, we could half the number of cars that make these by car pooling. People should also be encouraged to use public transport when they can. If bus and train tickets cost less maybe more people would use them.

My final suggestion is a simple one. If new roads need to be built we need to consider the animals that this would affect. Road engineers could leave tunnels or passages under these new roads. This would allow animals to cross the under safely. Yes travel is important but not at the expense of our environment.

Ornaith Ní Oipicín

 

 

WHAT GREEN SCHOOLS TRAVEL MEANS TO ME

It is the year 2100, and global warming has being stabilised, but it is still uncomfortably high temperature. The earth is almost constantly being bombarded by bad weather, from typhoons to acid rain. Much of the forest on the planet is destroyed, only small pockets remain, but no move is made to replenish them. As for the animal life, it is depleted dramatically, mostly confined to zoos, small remote areas and in factories (though these genetically engineered meat bags can hardly be called animals any more).

As for the humans, they have split of into two main species, the rich, who live in bubbles, suspended in a jelly like substance, their limbs atrophied but their brains look much larger from constant usage, they are wired up to a virtual reality drive, in which they live their greatest fantasies. The other species are the poor, the look much like you or me, and live in similar circumstances too (except for the fact that they have a chip in their brain that monitors their every thought and feeling, just in case one of them is trying to be different from the herd). This tells the story of one of them.

Aluminium Interactive was not a bad kid, it was just that he liked to be different (if you are wondering about the funny name, it is fashionable in these days to name your child after a compound of some sort, and the last name is funny because the old last names, like O'Donnell had become abolished because they were from a past era, and every one had to chose a new "technologically sounding" name and Aluminium's grandparents had chosen Interactive).

He was 12 years old and had red hair, brown eyes, a large beaky nose and a skinny frame. He was interested in history and the environment, or what was left of it. He was excited on this particular day because they were going to the museum of the 21st century. This was his favourite period in earth's history, because it had so many technological advances, it was also his lest favourite because that was the era that most of the species of plants and animals went extinct. His teacher, the 812xy would be leading the tour. They took a multiple persons vehicle to get to the museum, when they finally arrived they all had to be scanned encase of terrorism, and a couple of children were taken to a little side room for having objects that were considered weapons, including hoverbeds, pencils and games consoles. Those children Aluminium never saw again, but he figured that they had just being sent home or something like that.

They walked through the grand halls of the museum, gazing at primitive laptops and mobile phones and odd old fashioned things called books, with 812xy pointing out things of importance "in this case you can see the yoyo" it said in its flat tones "experts of our time, suggest it was used as a weapon of sorts, used to kill animated objects with life threatening purpose". "Why didn't they use guns"? Asked Carbon Manufacture, the smartest girl in are class, "be quite Carbon" said 812xy. They were heading out, when one exhibition caught Aluminium's eye, it was a piece of paper in a glass case. It was titled "what green school travel means to me". He waited till no one was looking and took a picture. He quickly ran to join the others.

Later that night, Aluminium read the essay, it was very interesting, and it pointed out many issues that he had never thought of, like people walking to school, "why don't we walk to school" he thought. It also said that cars caused global warming, "what"! Thought Aluminium, "but the government said that global warming was caused by natural causes" Then, something odd happened. He heard a loud wail, it sounded like the policing robot squad. That was odd, because his neighbourhood was a very quiet family street, but even weirder, they stopped at his house! He heard the door being knocked down, something pounding up stairs and suddenly he was grabbed and before he could do anything about it he felt a hand put a cloth to his mouth and he passed out.

His parents said that he had gone on holiday, but the truth was that he was sent to a re-education camp in China. When he went in he was an odd boy with dangerous knowledge in his head, when he came out he was a simple law abiding citizen, with nothing in his head. The essay was removed from the museum and hidden away. And so goes the story of a boy who knew too much.

Robin Mac an Rí