By: Nazeem Amin Ahmad, 12 years old
The following is a submission of one of our applicants to this year’s Chaa Creek Eco Kids Summer Camp.
Officially known as the Children’s Summer Camp Scholarship Program, the annual event gives 24 young Belizeans between the ages of 8 and 13 a chance to learn about their natural world through a mix of adventure, social interaction, fun and hands-on education aimed at instilling a sense of wonder and responsibility for the environment.
The Eco Kids are selected after submitting a 300 word written essay which is reviewed and shortlisted by the Chaa Creek scholarship committee with the winners going on to attend the summer camp.
Chaa Creek will be providing all lodging, three healthy meals and snacks each day, structured educational activities, arts and craft materials, tee shirts, 24-hour camp counselor supervision, and guided tours conducted by licensed naturalist guides.
Good luck potential Eco Kids!
We Need to save the earth! Our environment is precious and without it we wouldn’t be alive. Plants and animals need us and we need them. We have an ecological relationship with each other. But the problem is that we are releasing more carbon than we could even imagine. Such as burning petroleum, gas and using factories that release it into the atmosphere, even our carbon footprints. A carbon footprint is the measure of the amount of greenhouse gases, measured in units of carbon dioxide, produced by human activities. A carbon footprint can be measured for an individual or an organization, and is typically given in tons of CO2-equivalent (CO2-cq) per year.
Think, for 1 gallon of gasoline the car burns that’s 19 pounds of carbon dioxide, so if your family drives a car 1,000 miles for 1 month that’s 240,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide released.
Also that’s 120 additional tons of carbon dioxide; multiply that by every car in the world…that’s a lot of carbon dioxide. If that is released into the atmosphere, it will cause smog and acid rain. If you want to know how acid rain works try this: put 2 plants in the same amount of sunlight and give them the same amount of water. In 1 plant drop a few teaspoons of vinegar. Leave for a week and check them. The one you put in vinegar it will grow slowly and eventually dies. That’s because of the amount of acid the vinegar has.
Pollution will also destroy our majestic earth. It is what makes our allergies worst. So we should reduce, recycle and reuse. This is what I do by turning off our room light when we don’t need them, use little water. I love animals. In our home I save little animals trapped and I enthusiastically encourage my little brothers and sisters to help and save the little pollinators and insects. I love playing with cats, dogs, birds and fishes; I love nature. I’ll do anything to stop global warming that causes the melting of the ice caps.
That’s why I should be an eco-kid at your camp so I can learn more ways to better my environment.
The above essay is for our Eco Kids Summer Camp competition. To learn more about the program, click here: Chaa Creek Eck Kids Summer Camp 2013