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Environmental Education – a New School Subject?

  You have probably heard about global warming and other environmental problems in the news. Unfortunately, there are many severe environmental issues many people aren’t aware of. In my opinion a new subject in school about environmental education would be required to get people informed and make the world a better place we can be proud of. Because there are serious environmental issues that threaten many places in the world, I believe that it is important to talk about a few of them in school. Some current environmental issues are world hunger, pollution, deforestation and global warming. For example, the concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere was increased by 48 percent in comparison to the preindustrial age and the Amazon River releases almost 20 percent more CO 2 into the atmosphere than it consumes from it. There are many ways how schools can contribute to fighting the climate crisis. Firstly, they could teach generation Z more about the greenhouse effect and global warming s...

Covid19 taught students many things

  Due to Covid19 schools in Austria were closed in the year 2020/21 a lot. Students who are attending 9 th to 11 th grade were homeschooled for around three months in total. Younger pupils and high-school graduators were able to get educated at school a bit more. Even though some teenagers were allowed to go to school since January, their classes were divided into two groups, so that there weren’t too many people at once. And because there were two groups, one group could just go to school for two days, so that the other one was able to get educated on the other two days as well. Fridays were still homeschooled.  However, studying at home taught students a lot of new things which they would probably have not learned in school. If you don’t think so just keep on reading, I will persuade you. Firstly, teenagers have learned to organize themselves and their time schedule better, because in our school we got more assignments than having onli...

A lost schoolyear because of Covid-19?

  Covid-19 was a shock for all of us. The schools in Austria were suddenly closed and all children were sent home. The turbulent everyday life of pupils was suddenly no longer turbulent but instead monotonous and boring. Many months later, half of the class returned to school for two days at a time. And now, on Monday 17 th of May 2021, the long-awaited face-to-face teaching in the schools has started again. And the legitimate question arises: did Covid-19 cost us a year of education? What would you say? I would say no. Of course, it was a new, unfamiliar and perhaps not easy kind of learning during Covid-19. But one thing is for certain: Students learned a lot that they would never have been taught at school. Firstly, pupils became more independent. They learned how to organize themselves and structure their day. They also gained discipline as they were forced to hand in challenging tasks on time. Moreover, they also had to follow a healthy routine in order not to harm their body ...

No education because of Covid19?

  The last year was very difficult for many students in Austria. Why? Covid19 didn’t just change the way we shop, but also the way we go to school. In this year, the school system changed significantly. To illustrate this point, distance learning was established and the students only went to school for short periods of time. The whole class was in school for a very short time and from then on, distance learning and shift operation shaped the school year. But this time didn’t cost us a year of education, as many people might claim. Because of these new systems, students have learned many new skills. They worked with computers on a regular basis, organised themselves and even learned new topics on their own. This was a time where students developed a lot of new abilities which they wouldn’t have gained in a normal year. In my opinion, this year didn’t cost us a year of education. In fact, I believe this unique time was a very educational one for the students. For instance, the comput...

Environment – a school subject?

  Do you know about deforestation? Or the melting polar caps? Or maybe even the Great Pacific garbage patch? All of these are topics regarding the environment. Although they are so important, not much about them is taught at schools. And that’s what I want to talk about in this Blog post. I got most of the information I have about these topics from the Internet or documentaries. Current environmental problems, regarding the ocean, are not talked about in school that much, although they are just as important as some of the other problems we learn about. That’s a topic, pupils should definitely learn more about. But that’s just one of many. Do you know any ways to help with the climate crisis and other environmental issues? If you ask me, that’s something that schools should teach young people more about. That would help a lot, because it spreads awareness about the environment and suggests ways for the students to help with its condition. Another way schools could help, involves sch...

Have we lost a whole school year?

  Covid-19, Coronavirus, Sars-Covid-2, we’ve heard it all. For more than a year this pandemic has kept us on the run and has bothered us all day long. But how exactly has it affected the way we learn, or to be more precise, how much we learn in school? I grew up and am currently living in Austria. Here, the situation, as in almost every other country, has been very difficult during the past year. For 15- to- 18-year-olds, schools were closed for roughly 6 months due to the pandemic. Every time a new announcement by the government was made, we had to get all our books and go home to do “distance-learning”.  I am sure that everyone has learned at least something from this difficult period of time. Many of my peers say that they can now manage their work schedule a lot better, others state that it even got worse due to the loss of structure. In this regard the separation of work and free time has gotten a lot more difficult as we didn’t leave our house to get to school or work an...

The gaps that we need to fill

  I presume that I need not introduce anyone to COVID-19 . It is the reason why you cannot see your friends and also why you can wake up at 9 am on weekdays. And this is precisely the premise of today's blog post. How did the lack of regular lessons influence us, and did we indeed waste a year of education?  We are not going to lie to ourselves:  this school year has been extremely overwhelming . The back and forth between going to school and switching to distant learning left not only me but a lot of others very confused. Until November we were all together as a class, and then we had to shift to online education. After that, it was just a mix of online lessons and  class attendance, with only half of the students present.  Nonetheless, I can tell from my own experience that when it comes to new skills, this year has been very productive. I think that the most important one is becoming  a more independent learner. It is difficult for teachers to check on t...