It was a pleasant day outside. The sun was shining brightly, the birds were chirping their song. I headed into my classroom only to hear the most shocking, dreadful news. “No, they can’t,” I screamed in front of my teacher and classmates, “they just can’t.” They were going to cut the woods down. The woods are where my teacher, Mrs. Fitz, takes us every week. It is beautiful there, cardinals and blue jays chirping, the warm sun shining through the trees, and a cool refreshing breeze. And now they were going to eliminate it. The one and only place I felt at home, completely away from stress, was going to disappear forever. And it was for a dog park. Seriously? The next hours of school were dreadful. The trees I had looked at and loved all my life were being chopped down with every cruel swing of an axe. Feeling stunned, I realized human beings can be reckless and heartless creatures. Questions rose into my brain: What would happen if we kept doing this? Cutting trees, littering, polluting. One day our beautiful, clean world would be reduced to nothing! There would be less clean air and unwanted climate change. Does our planet deserve such a fate? All this thinking changed my view point. I know that I am not M. Yoganathan, who planted 1,20,000 trees in southern state of India, or some other eco expert, but this … cutting down woods for a dog park is just plain wrong! I had a feeling, if I am part of this Earth, is it not my duty to protect it as well as I can? I started doing little things, taking it step by step, and I was confident I could bring a positive change. I remembered a truly incredible quote “Pen is mightier than sword.” Instead of writing about simple, basic things, I started talking about the environment and pollution on my blog. Mother Teresa, a very famous humanitarian, had once said, “We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.” I told all my friends about these cruel things happening in the world. All of us together did many things to help Mother Earth. Some of them were: using recycled paper, turning off electronics when we were not using them, and organizing environment groups. One of them was to adopt a plant and make sure it grows strong and healthy. Such group activities really helped us see a new and better world and was a huge success. After Halloween, our class organized an event dedicated to composting pumpkins. All those pumpkins would have gone to the landfill but now they were used to make soil rich, and believe it or not, pig food too. My friends and I handed out flyers, gave reports, and talked at schools to raise awareness in our community. Slowly, bit by bit, we saw changes. There was less litter, clean air, and lots of trees. I had lost the woods, but had found my key for having a better, healthier environment. Now I dream of a green planet and especially now, we are one step closer to it.
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AuthorAnanya Raghu . Archives
March 2017
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