Mar 25, 2008

Earth Hour 2008, Are you ready?

Saturday March 29, 8pm local time.

Although our lovely City is not officially participating in this year's Earth Hour, Christchurch City, (5 hours drive from here) is.

More about Earth Hour here.

The idea is to turn off your lights and extraneous electrical appliances for an hour. Here's a recap of what happened in 2007, from the Earth Hour Wiki (linked above)
The 2007 Earth Hour was part of a wider awareness campaign that aimed to reduce Sydney's carbon emissions by 5%. 68,506 individuals and 2,270 businesses registered their intention to participate on the Earth Hour website. EnergyAustralia, a utility, attributed a 10.2% decrease in consumption during the hour to the campaign. A poll of about 1000 people conducted afterwards suggested that 57% of Sydneysiders participated – some 2.2 million people.
Find out if your city is participating here

I think we'll join in anyway, regardless of City participation. Sounds like a great excuse for a candle-lit evening and real conversation :)

3 comments:

rochelle said...

Hey Stace! Nice to hear from you! Thanks for the message... yeah- it was crazy to catch up with all the peeps in Singapore... really cool to see them all.

I was interested to read your blogs on home schooling... it's an interesting dilemma… I guess to my mind a lot about schooling has to do with understanding that not everyone in the world is like you and yours. We also get lots of kids who come really like coming to high school ‘cos their teachers are subject specialists, not generalists like primary teachers. This is an interesting school model- http://www.discovery1.school.nz/Discovery_1_Website/Home.html and the secondary version http://www.unlimited.school.nz/

xxxr

home handymum said...

Hiya!

Had a look, sound like interesting schools. Kinda like uber-homeschooling :) But in a school like that, you'd still be meeting a lot of kids of people who thought like your parents...

One of the home education groups here do a _lot_ of trips and activities together, on top of their optional weekly gatherings - including a marae trip, a beach bbq, a workshop/trip on the da Vinci exhibiton at the museum, and a netball team for year 5-8 girls etc etc (at least, according to their last month's newsletter).

The other group meets less frequently, but they have older kids who are more self-motivated in their learning and socialising (as opposed to having field trips organised for them).

The whole high school thing is something I'd like to talk to the other home educators about when I eventually make it to a meeting.

rochelle said...

Yeah- I knew some people in one of the home school groups in Dunners- they used to use the Logan Park facilities quite a lot... they certainly seemed to be a very proactive HS group. You are right though, Discovery etc are quite homogenous schools.... and they have the advantage that they can pick who they take so they take smart kids from nice families with supportive parents. I'm not convinced it would work as well for kids who don't have lunch.

xxxr

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