Thursday, July 16, 2009Price: Free dollars and freeteen cents

See Earth camp kicks off

Monday, July 15 was the first day of our See Earth experience at Algonquin College. We all started a little … quiet, but as we got to know each other we started talking, and we’ve already formed into “cliques”, so-to-speak.

In the morning we did ice break-ers and started by coming up with adjectives; there were a variety. Then we had to throw a tennis ball and say the name of the person you threw it to.

The second ice breaker was wink murder, where everybody closes their eyes and when somebody is tapped, they become the murderer. Everybody walks around, shakes hands and mingles. While one of the “minglers” is the murderer, one is a detective searching for the mur-derer. When the murderer winks at you, you wait five seconds and die a dramatic death.

After wink murder we played a quick game of chain tag. One per-son is “it”, and like tag, they have to touch people. When tagged, you link arms with the tagger.

All ice breakers were lead by Derek.

After the ice breakers we went back to room T102 and learned about brainstorming and concept mapping (lead by Jeremy). Brain-storming is coming up with – and writing down – the things you already know about your topic. Concept mapping is categorizing what you’ve brainstormed and then coming up with completely different ideas.

After Jeremy’s presentation we went to lunch. There were a lot of wraps with meat, lettuce and other veggies, etc. There were two dessert platters full of brownies, Nanaimo bars and carrot cakes. It looked like everybody had a great lunch.

Before lunch was over we were allowed to walk around for about 20 minutes. A lot of people went to the courtyard and hung out in the sun. A few people played Duck, Duck, Goose and headed back after their fun.

After leaving the café, group two went to the Global Positioning Sys-tems (GPS) course. We were taught about longitude and latitude, and how the earth isn’t round; it’s more elliptical and covered in mountains and valleys.

Then we got to take the GPS out-side and use it to get from waypoint to waypoint. We learned about geo-caching, which is basically a treasure hunt but for your body with GPS.

By Chris DesjardinsSaint Pius X

Sarah Sutton photo

Kait Labbate photo

Sue Ragaisis checks out the mighty water force that carved out the Bonnechere Caves.

Gabriel Waino-Theberge completes a challenge for the amazing race outside of the Algonquin horticultural centre.

see Kick Off on page 2

We arrived from the treasure hunt task at about 4:30 p.m. and had to move all of the tables and chairs to the front of the room, leaving the back open for the Junkyard Sym-phony who began setting up shortly after the table and chairs were moved.

While the Junkyard Symphony set up, the campers were given our rooms and room keys for our resi-dence on campus. When everybody got to their rooms they dumped their stuff while others unpacked. Everybody got comfortable with their rooms as quickly as they did with each other.

But that didn’t last long because we had to be back to T102 by 5 p.m., so everyone headed back and en-joyed a wondrous show performed by Junkyard Johnny and Trash Can Tony, along with some volunteers from the See Earth campers.

After a 10 minute break it was back to the fun.

Everybody got warmed up and was tapping to the beats as we learned about music, tempo, rhythm – that kind of thing.

We then made maracas, drums and played rhythm ball. There were two gongs and two milk crates, one of each per side (the people not playing participated by playing their newly made instruments). The point of the game is to bounce the ball off the gong and into the basket. You must pass the ball on the first beat of each bar, and score.

After the Junkyard Symphony departed we were introduced to seed paper, which is regular paper that has been shredded and soaked, then bleached and put on a window screen overnight to dry (with seeds in the last step). While some were given the opportunity to make seed paper, others chose to play games.

After that long day of learning and fun – a combination not often found in classrooms – everyone headed back to their dorms and prepared for a good night’s sleep.

The campers are going to need that sleep, there’s another good day ahead of them.

Kick Off continued

Stories and photos for this issue have been produced by high school students from the Ottawa Public and Ottawa Catholic school boards.

Editing and design by Algonquin College journalism students Christopher Hunt and Andrew Payne.

On the evening of Monday, July 13th, the Junkyard Symphony deliv-ered an electrifying performance for us at Algonquin College.

It was not so much a symphony as a brilliant, interactive mix of perfor-mance arts, emphasizing an intimate connection with the audience in the style of street buskers, who use partici-pation to keep their audiences hooked and have small audiences with whom a participatory element is practical.

The audience at times became the symphony, providing a basic accompa-niment of mass clapping to the main instrumentalist, Trash Can Tony.

The leader (as far as I could tell) focused on clowning and magic tricks. But many of his students, as he would explain in the workshop that followed, were part of the music in that they had rhythm; be that visual rhythm or balance or rhythmic motion. Rhythm was explained not as a mere musical concept but a vast, almost mystical motion of “cycle”.

The combination of rhythm and interactivity they presented was “very funny and creative,” said Cole. And of course, Shane added, “they are very smart for using junk as instruments.”

The Junkyard Symphony showed us all what it means to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rock.

Symphony plays garbage music

Junkyard Johnny gets ready to start the show in room T102. Sarah Sutton photo

By Gabriel Waino-ThebergeCanterbury High School

The See Earth team arrived at Wil-derness Tours in the early afternoon and immediately went to their cabins and then to the beach. We did a swim to see if we could stay alone during a swim. We then went to play beach vol-leyball for a couple of hours and then went to change and then ate dinner.

The day in 58 words

By Austin BellNepean High School

Stephanie Stroud (left) and Maria Warren entertain themselves on the bus.Eleanor Miller photo

Sarah Willgress and Jacob Hopps spelunking.

Journey into the dark By Sarah WilgressMother Theresa High School

On July 15, 2009, the See Earth camp visited the Bonnechere Caves on their way to the Wilderness Tours camp. Lo-cated in Eastern Ontario, it was a fun and educational morning.

Upon arrival we headed for the Bon-nechere River near the caves as they were not yet ready for us.

“The river was really beautiful,” said Sarah B.

Later on in two groups we went into the caves with our tour guide Josh. He spoke of many things about the caves from fossils to the founder. All in all it was a fun and educational trip which should be preserved throughout the ages to be seen by generations.

By Dianna Bercerra Ramos, Giovanna Castellanos and Yasmin

Bercerra Saint Pius X

The most exciting part on the beach was participating in activities like vol-leyball, swimming and jumping from rope.

We also chose our own roommates. At dinner, the food was very delicious, especially the strawberry dessert. It was very good.

As we walked around the forest we saw a lot of trees and enjoyed the fresh air. We listened to our teacher and guide talk about the activities we would be doing as they showed us around the campsite.

We would like to come again next year, with the program “See-Earth,” or for a change, with our families.

We enjoyed doing the different ac-tivities and learning how to save our Earth, so that in the future it could be a better place.

The most challenging things we had to do were the activities that we felt very scared to do, like jumping from the rope at the beach.

Into the sun, onto the beach

Sarah Sutton and Eleanor Miller at Algonquin, preparing for the trip.

Sarah Wilgress has a laugh moments before entering the cave. The Bonnechere Caves were first opened to the public in the 1950’s.

Eleanor Miller photo

Eleanor Miller photoJacob Hopps, Gord Kubanek, Linda Minnelli and Kathryn Currie learn about the many different types of fossils located at the Bonnechere caves.

Eleanor Miller photo

Kait Labbate photoDelorean Clark photo

Kait Labbate towers over thewarring chess pieces at her feet.

A welcome sight for students after the long ride to the caves.

Kait Labbate photo

This publication is printed on 100 per cent recycled paper

By Jacob HoppsCarine Wilson High School

Gerrie, the “Worm Lady” came to Algonquin College on Tuesday, July 14 and taught us about how you can use worms to decompose all waste in-cluding human, animal, meat and milk products.

You need outdoor composters to compost yard waste, and indoor com-posters to compost house waste.

It’s hard to keep a balanced compos-ter with all carbon. It should be 30:1 carbon. Lots of carbon (egg shells, tea leaves, socks and tee-shirts).

An earthworm can break down a gal-lon of waste to one-eighths of a gallon because most of it is moisture. You never put soil in a composter; you make soil. Worms like sweets like fruits and any-thing high in sugar (like Smoothies).

Worms like to live with 50 per cent moisture.

When a worm is six to eight weeks old, it turns red; before then, they are white.

Worms consume their weight in gar-bage (10 lbs. of worms can consume 10 lbs. of garbage). A composter can be any container of any size – use an in-side container – and maybe we can put composters in washrooms. We could put worms in landfills.

That’s because worms are digesters. They have a symbiotic relationship with decomposers. Insects are decomposers, but are not digesters.

All human pathogens are created un-der anerobic conditions. Every month, the amount of earth worms double in number in a composter.

If you have eight to 10 inches of shredded paper on top of the soil, it stops the fruit flies and house flies from getting into your compost.

Earth worms can be used to clean out outhouse waste.

An earthworm has five hearts.Earthworms have photosensitive

skin cells so they can “feel” with their skin and they come out at night to eat dead and decaying matter. Rain is the single natural enemy of the earthworm; the human is the biggest enemy of the earthworm.

Earthworms don’t have a nose, but they can smell better than humans. They can hear vibrations, but they have no ears. They can detect birds flying overhead.

Some of us lost sight during ‘The Amazing Race’ adventure at the 2009 See Earth program.

The afternoon was filled with adven-ture as we tried to complete challenges and all sorts of tasks.

“Our challenge was to split up into two teams and create as complete six eco-challenges in 45 minutes,” said Sarah Sutton when we interviewed her after the race. Although it was a fun ex-perience, we learned there was more than six challenges along the way.

As the first six members plotted their points and began their adventure, the others sat quietly and waited for their journey to begin. In addition to finding Jacob in the garbage can, Gabriel hav-ing to stick his head in a fountain and retrieving a library card with much dif-ficulty, we also faced numerous tests between tests and teammates.

“Not everyone acted as a team,” said Eleanor Miller.

The stress of a time limit and a big

team seemed to arise during the games, causing some conflict along the way.

We need to change our viewpoint from thinking about ourselves (me) to thinking about teamwork and every-one else (we). We realized that this was our invitation to discover the power of working together, not necessarily win-ning the game.

That’s one of the reasons our world is so sick. No one really works together. How high can any of us soar by our-selves? Think about it; a man alone, or an army. What’s going to make a bigger difference?

Whether it’s one action, or one small step, if we all put our little bits of good together we’ve learned this is how we can be the change.

Lady ‘worms’ her way into our hearts

Jacob Hopps, Gabriel Waino-Theberge, Arianne Michaud, Sarah Wilgress and Suzannah Nicholson listen to Gerrie Baker teach about worms.

Worm eggs about to erupt in Gord Kubanek’s hand at Algonquin.

Sarah Sutton photo

‘Amazing Race’ highlights the need for vision and teamwork

Two different faces of summer. Above: Teacher Gord Kubanek snoozes at the caves, while Eleanor Miller playfully hides behind leaves.

By Kait Labbate and Delorean ClarkOsgoode Township High School

We realized that this was our invitation to discover the power of working together, not necessarily winning the game.

Kait Labbate photo

Eleanor Miller photo

Sarah Sutton photo