People from Ecoland, this night at 7 pm we do have a nice dinner with all the Parliament members.
Please, be there on time and well dressed because we are going to have fun tonight, we promise you!
See you soon...
Friday, July 31, 2009
What President Takalani thinks
President Takalani feels very happy and content about his three years in government of Ecoland. He and the other ministers have achieved their goals which were: develop the country into a place where people like to live by changing the economy and persue ecological improvements by diminishing pollution.
Final day
As I have observed other groups over the past couple of weeks, I realize that some of us are very strong leaders, some are vocal and comfortable sharing with the group, some are more like the strong, silent type who gets the work done without a lot of attention. It appears, at least from the outside, that all of the groups worked very well together.
Our media group consists of women who are strong and have opinions about how to do our work. What worked for us was communicating initially on how we wanted to present our news, then we each worked in our respective areas to get the information. It all seemed to come together, and Judith's computer skills helped us achieve more than power point presentations!
Initially we tried to compose a newspaper to print in addition to our video reports. Things move so swiftly in Ecoland that by the time I wrote a news article for publication, it was old news! So we decided to stick with our broadcasts to the whole group. Time was usually an issue, because it took time for the government, households and companies to meet and form strategies and make decisions. By the time they were ready to share information with the media, we had little time to create a very polished and professional newscast. We had to accept that it could not be as nice as we would like it.
I was in charge of interviewing companies and I found myself confused at first about the numbers and decisions concerning the companies. It helped me to have their management session instructions, and each company was more than helpful in explaining their strategies to me. Because I only worked with companies for our media reports, I found that when we were in parliament sessions I tended to side with the company viewpoints. I believe the reason for that was that I did not spend time with the households to understand their point of view. I guess I was not a very good objective reporter.
I have learned so much during this program, but I have also made connections with people that I value even more. I would like to create a model for my 8th grade students based on what I have observed and learned during SITP, because I think that if we want to be a part of changing the mindset of the world on the balance between economics and the enviroment, we must start by educating young people.
Ways to improve SITP? From my perspective, it was a very good program and I am very glad I participated. But I did not stay in dorms on campus so my experience was a bit different. Maybe more whole-group interactions to solidify us during the first few days. And a bit more time to study the ECOSYS book to get a clearer picture of our work ahead. Some examples of what a 5% tax would look like as opposed to a 10% tax, for example, would help some of us who struggle with numbers. I don't think we could ask for more helpful, more patient or more personable instuctors than Ross and Peter, so thank you both.
Our media group consists of women who are strong and have opinions about how to do our work. What worked for us was communicating initially on how we wanted to present our news, then we each worked in our respective areas to get the information. It all seemed to come together, and Judith's computer skills helped us achieve more than power point presentations!
Initially we tried to compose a newspaper to print in addition to our video reports. Things move so swiftly in Ecoland that by the time I wrote a news article for publication, it was old news! So we decided to stick with our broadcasts to the whole group. Time was usually an issue, because it took time for the government, households and companies to meet and form strategies and make decisions. By the time they were ready to share information with the media, we had little time to create a very polished and professional newscast. We had to accept that it could not be as nice as we would like it.
I was in charge of interviewing companies and I found myself confused at first about the numbers and decisions concerning the companies. It helped me to have their management session instructions, and each company was more than helpful in explaining their strategies to me. Because I only worked with companies for our media reports, I found that when we were in parliament sessions I tended to side with the company viewpoints. I believe the reason for that was that I did not spend time with the households to understand their point of view. I guess I was not a very good objective reporter.
I have learned so much during this program, but I have also made connections with people that I value even more. I would like to create a model for my 8th grade students based on what I have observed and learned during SITP, because I think that if we want to be a part of changing the mindset of the world on the balance between economics and the enviroment, we must start by educating young people.
Ways to improve SITP? From my perspective, it was a very good program and I am very glad I participated. But I did not stay in dorms on campus so my experience was a bit different. Maybe more whole-group interactions to solidify us during the first few days. And a bit more time to study the ECOSYS book to get a clearer picture of our work ahead. Some examples of what a 5% tax would look like as opposed to a 10% tax, for example, would help some of us who struggle with numbers. I don't think we could ask for more helpful, more patient or more personable instuctors than Ross and Peter, so thank you both.
Who Is Going to Build the Highest Tower?
Our first task as the Media Group was to build a tower. The only material we were allowed to use was a newspaper. After quite some thinking and many discussions we finally started to roll the pages and join them in order to get a long, thin, sticklike pole. The base of our tower was kind of a tripod. Because in was inclined (even more so than the famous tower of Pisa) it threatened to slide and fall on the slippery floor. Nevertheless we succeeded in building the second highest tower. It had been our first attempt of collaboration and we had a lot of fun.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Ecoland News
Don't forget to read our newspaper Ecoland News. The second edition has come out.
http://sites.google.com/site/ecolandnews/home
http://sites.google.com/site/ecolandnews/home
More Teachers for Ecoland
So far out of the promised 1500 posts for teachers during the following year, only 175 have actually been created. Government explains this by not having enough revenues, which means they'll have to find more money to spend on education. As the expenditures for administrations underwent a raise of more than 10 million CHF, this may be, where at least part of the necessairy funds could be taken from. Administration seems to be rather "blown up".
Cascades
Regarding yesterday's excursion to the cascades. There are even more people to be congratulated for swimming in the cold water: at least Thomas and Helmut were brave enough too.
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