From Rubbish to Something

As we all know, waste is one of the big problems in the big city like Jakarta. We at least produce 2 baskets of rubbish in a week. So, imagine how it could be if all houses in Jakarta produce waste just like that in a month, in a year, and then years. The waste piles up into one and becomes a giant mountain.

Hey, wake up! That is not in our imagination no more. It is there already! Take a look at Bantar Gebang. You will find a giant mountain full of waste. Thing is this giant mountain brings about the stinky air because of the methane gas it produces. I can’t even imagine how the people still survive there. For the worse, it also makes the Ozone becomes thinner. So, that’s why our land now becomes hotter than ever.

Actually, this methane gas would not be produced if the waste wasn’t mixed between the organic (rice, vegetables, fruit, etc) and the non-organic (plastics, cans, etc). But the problem doesn’t stop only for separating the waste. The waste will still be the giant mountain if we do not act deeper to decrease it. How to decrease our waste if we already separate the waste into organic and non-organic? The answer is we can recycle and reuse it. We can decrease the organic waste into compost and we also can make beautiful things from the non-organic waste.

Recycling the organic waste

We can make compost with “Takakura Basket”. This method was introduced first in Japan from the scientist named Takakura. It is easy.

1. First we need to have the basket, "Takakura Basket". This is what it looks like:

2. Before we do anything to the basket, we need to pile up some husks and cover it with microorganism liquid. After that, put this husk to a net bag. We need also to cover the inside basket with cartoons and cover it with microorganism liquid. Put in a little a bit of compost to the basket and there you go with the rubbish (the organic one).

3. Cover up the rubbish with the net bag full of husks and then with a stocking.

  
4. After that, close the basket and wait for 2 weeks for the result.










Then, there you go with your own organic compost! Easy, right?


Recycling the non-organic waste

This one is kind of hard to be recycled, so we need to reuse it. We have to use our creativity on it. I will give you an example. We can make those beautiful vases you see above. If you have bottles that you do not use anymore, you can make these things. First, you can cover the outer side of the bottle with glue than put on egg skin (that you already washed before) on it. Then, make it looks attractive with putting some color over it. That’s it! 

References:

• All of this knowledge I found when I entered "The Rock 'n Gree Tour" event on one of the subject I took (Environmental Education). So, thanks for SIMPONI (Sindikat Musik Penghuni Bumi) for sharing it to us!
• http://www.keranjangtakakura.blogspot.com/

Six Thinking Hats

 

Everyone has his/her own perspective in seeing things. I believe that one! Even, we can see a single same glass on a table in many different perspectives. You see it right from above but I see it from below. Actually, what we see is the same – a glass on the table, but for sure we see it differently.

Dr. Edward de Bono proposed six thinking hats to give us the pictures of having many perspectives. He determined six different colored hats (red, yellow, white, black, green, and blue) as our different thinking ways. Red is representative for an intuition thinking way. Yellow is informative. White is constructive. Black is cautious. Green is creative. The last but not least, blue is reflective.

When you use a red hat, it means that mostly you take an action of something (that you think is good) by using your intuition. You follow your heart on it.

The yellow hat is the sunshine hat! It means that you think in always the positive side. You build up your spirit by thinking of something in a good way.

White hat is the information seeker hat. You always want to find out the facts. You think in a neutral way, based on the information and the facts you find.

The black hat is the cautious hat. You are always cautious on something, whether the steps you are taking gives you any risk. You are cautious on the risk it follows.

The green hat means that you are creative. The green itself symbolizes the growth and the development. Your mind is full of fresh ideas. It means that you always seeks for new ideas and the solution of something.

Finally, blue hat is the control hat. You are the controller in here. You make things under control. You are focus and you could provoke the use of the other hats. You like to reflect on something that happened to you.

I think from those six thinking hats, Dr Edward de Bono is trying to say that we have many kinds of thinking ways. It is good to have our own perspectives in seeing things, but it is better if we also see others perspectives. So that we dont see only the bad side of something happens, but we also see the good side on it, and we could make new ideas for the solution it takes for the risk it follows.  

Reflection: 

Now think about the situation around us. The simple one: when the flood occurs. What would you do? Try to apply these six thinking hats for you to think before taking a further action. Use the red one, then you will take an acting using your intuition, what will you do next when you are stuck on the flood. Sometimes your feeling tells you something right. Then, when you use the yellow one, you will think positively that may be this flood happens because God is blessing with water He gave. So, you do not always have to see the negative side like this flood happens because the goverenment fails to cover it up and so on and so forth.

Beatboxing

           
          Be creative and be environmental friendly with this beatboxing! Beatboxing is some kind of vocal percussion in producing an art (in this case music). It is more like an acapella but it is kind of a different thing. You sing acapella in groups but you beatbox all by yourself. So, it is kind of cooler! 

          This kind of music (beatbox) doesn’t need any usual instruments to produce the rhythm and the sound (e.g. guitars, keyboards, drums, etc), but except for the microphone to make your sound coming out from your mouth bigger. All you need is only your mouth (lips, tongue, and voice), that’s it! You can produce the sounds of drum beats, the rhythms, and other musical sounds all by using your mouth.         

Me, Angga, and Melly

          A cool beatboxer (based on my thought) can produce at least 3 kinds of sounds in a time. That is the crazy one! I don't even know how they could do that but I have seen that one before (directly!). This picture you see (on the left side) is a picture of me and my friend with a beatboxer name Angga. This guy is cool! He could make a beatbox producing 3 kinds of different sounds in one time!  I met him on "Rock 'n Green Tour" event on my campus.

          So, again, this kind of art is actually very environmental friendly because you don’t need to cut off the trees to make musical instruments such as guitars. Yet, you still could be hell creative, even more creative than using other musical instruments.

References: 
www.wikipedia.com

Fast Food Generation

           

          It seems to me that we now live in a fast food world, where we can get food in just a quick time. Well, quick in here is not always good. Further, in my opinion, it’s bad. But why fast food is bad? It's simply because we now are losing our sense of eating itself. We eat and gather together with our family  so that we can have this sense of eating with family around. What can fast food say about? Many fast restaurants were designed so that the people could leave fast, example: the "carry home" food, or delivery order. Also, many fast food is junkies. They are full cholesterol. So that many people gain weight easily. 

         There are four considerations to categorize food into fast food; efficient, controllable, predictable, and technology usage. Efficient is for the quick time people get when they are served in fast food restaurant. Controllable is for getting the food ready in control, for example the food must get ready in always the fix time (15 minutes). Predictable is for the food that we can always predict the taste and the shape. And else, fast food companies always use a high technology rather than human touch in producing the food.      

         So, if you find all these four criteria in your food that you are eating, it might be fast food. Besides that, fast food is often cheap. In other counties like US and European counties, fast food that is served in like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, or KFC, is quite cheap. But in here, in my country, Indonesia, those kinds of food are quite expensive. So, thanks to God I don’t eat that a lot for like everyday.

        Maybe McD's is quite expensive here, but what about noddles on packages? Those are pretty cheap and we eat a lot of these things. That has already been in our culture. Even, we can get this only for a thousand rupiahs. People seek for the cheap and fast one. So, that is why we eat that a lot. Lets just don't use "we" in here. I myself eat that a lot (at least before I knew it is included in fast food). But I am trying to make it less.

reNEWable Energy for Earth Fate

We had a jigsaw presentation in Environmental Education class once. My group - we got to present about energy so we named it out "reNEWable Energy for Earth Fate".

As we know, we definitely need energy to support our life, our daily activity. We need it because we consume it for almost everything; cooking, taking on transportation, putting on electricity, and so on. Those kind of things could cause some problems, especially on our environment. 

From exploiting the sources into energy until consuming it, we had caused the damages to the environment, for example: the fossil fuel. We exploited it into energy so that we can drive on our rides (cars, buses, motorcycles, etc). Don't you know that the fossil fuel could only be recycled in hundred years? That's such a lot of time! It means that we had taken out our natural resources more and more. After that, we drove on our rides that produced the gas emission. That's the main problem that caused the greenhouse effect a.k.a globalization. 

We need to change! That's the purpose of this renewable energy. We can now change to consume renewable energy, from the wind power, solar heat, and bioenergy. We have all this wind almost every time so that we can change it into energy. We also have the solar heat on day time and summer. And to produce this bioenergy we can take it from the woods. The problem of bioenergy is that it takes longer time to renew the energy because we have to plant the trees again, but at least we don't have to wait until hundred years to get the sources.

A lot of countries have applyied these renewable energies to solve the problems of damaging environment, such as Sweden, India, Zimbabwe, and others. Now its time for our country to do the same!

Reflection on Teacher Assistance Program

          The most memorable experience for me in this whole Teacher Assistance Program in SMA St. Theresia, during our two weeks school experience, was when my mentor teacher shared her experiences in teaching. She was talking about money, how teaching is worth it for a lot of money. She convinced us that becoming a teacher is pretty good because of what could we get. If we are creative enough to make products, like she showed us her modules for listening comprehension that she arranged by her own, we could get a lot of money. Yes, I agree that we could make money from our creativity. But for the modules that she arranged by her own, that she told me that’s how she gets money, I was just like unbelievable. I was thinking about the copyright issue. I wasn’t investigating too much about it so that I don’t really know about that issue. But I wouldn’t do that if I were her.

           Well, I know that we are as human beings definitely need money to make a living. However, for me myself, I don’t really care about that. No no no, I do care but that’s not the only thing I am searching for in becoming a teacher. If I wanted to become a rich woman, I wouldn’t make myself to become a teacher. I would maybe become a business woman, not a teacher. I just feel comfortable to work with children, that I can see them understand something I told them about. I know what I am doing, and I am sure that’s what I want to do in my life. As when I experienced teaching there like the real teacher, I was satisfied enough. Well, I didn’t really observe the class I wanted to teach because our mentor teacher felt that we might disturb her students for our presence. So, I didn’t get a chance to observe the class. When it was time for me (and Nancy as team teaching) to teach, I was so nervous but it moved easier for me to handle the class as the more time I spent there. Even the time (45 minutes) I spent in teaching felt like moved so fast. It makes me can’t wait to become the real teacher!

Digital Media in English Classroom Learning

       

          In my visit to St. Theresia Senior High School, for the Teaching Assistance program, in these two weeks (week 6 and week 7), I observed an English language teacher in her classroom. Her initial name is MG. She has been teaching there for 14 years. Actually, I had a little time and access to observe her classroom due to several things; I only had 8 days to visit there; and she wouldn’t allow me to observe her class because she thought I would disturb a teaching and learning process with my presence, yet I still took one chance to enter her class when she asked me to do an assignment. I was put at the back of the class, so I would not make any inconvenience to them.

          The school, as I could see, has good facilitation. They have a Language Laboratory that Ms. MG always uses most of the time. This Language Laboratory has one LCD in front of the room and about 40 seats along with the computers. There is also one computer along with the internet access on the teacher seat that could be accessed by Ms. MG anytime. She never even went to a classroom as far as I observed her. She admitted to me that she is focusing more on the listening part, and one student I interviewed agreed to the statement.

Language Laboratory in St. Theresia Senior High School

          She uses podcast for the listening material she gives to the students. She also told me that she often accesses google to find the materials for the lesson. She needs to find a high quality material (mostly a passage), like the present news happening around the world; not only the one she can find on the students’ textbooks. She thinks that her students need to know the news spread out around the globe because the students will face the real world, like colleges, soon after they graduate from high school. It is very good to improve students’ knowledge about the real life. Afterward, she uses a computer to make all the listening materials for her students. She even creates the module for the listening part.

          Therefore, I think Ms. MG has already got in touched with those digital medias. She has already been using them as the purpose of language learning. However, in my opinion, those digital medias are not maximally used by her. She’s not using them effectively. She uses them mostly for listening comprehension.

         If I were to teach there with the same good facilitation and lesson, I wouldn’t take my students to go to the Language Laboratory all the time. I think this lab limits the students space. Every seat has a divider wall that bounds to one and another. This lab lets the students to have a little interaction with their peers. I would, instead, teach in the classroom, and go to lab if necessary. Still, I can use the digital media to teach language. I could introduce facebook as a tool to study, not only for entertaining.

Experiencing The Real Teaching World

Aulia - Grace - Nancy

            My visit in St. Theresia Senior High School, for Teaching Assistance program, was not too bad, it was ok. We had to be ready to start teaching at the classroom for this second week. The thing is we are there for only 3 days, and then we have to be ready to teach. We did not get a chance to observe the classroom that we wanted to teach. Our mentor didn’t allow us to observe her class; because it was the time for the students to take an exam. She said we would disturb the class for our presence. So, we did not have the chance to observe her class but; we were able to observe the other teams’ class. 

As a result, we did not know the situation in the classroom for my mentor. I could only imagine what it was like. Our mentors didn’t really agree on our time allocation for teaching – 2 x 20 minutes. They said it was too short of a time so; they changed it to 1 x 45 minutes so we can learn how to teach more effectively.

Before I got to teach that day, I entered the other team’s class to know what it looked like to teach there. We had the same topic to teach: gerund, infinitive, and participle. We had a deal to make the lesson plan together, but each of team teaching had to pack it their own. I was paired with Nancy for team teaching and packing the lesson plan. We were to teach gerund only because, we thought the topic was too overwhelming. We may not cover all of the topics.

Students in St. Theresia Senior High School

When it was time for Nancy and I to teach, I was really nervous. Nancy remained calm. She helped me calm down because, I was really nervous. We started with introducing ourselves and “breaking the ice”. We distributed a passage for the material. I had 2 students read the passage out loud and then discussed it. We asked them to find the gerund forms on the passage. Then we explained what a gerund is. Finally, we made a quiz but, we made it more fun by turning it into a game. The students were really exciting about it because they could all answer. Not all of them answered it correctly, there were 1 or 2 students that made a few mistakes but, that is just part of the learning process.

In conclusion, I suppose the quiz was an effective way to help me evaluate how the lesson went. With the exam we understand how well they understand the material. The passage wasn’t really effective because we discussed the lesson afterwards such as; the main idea; the characteristic; etc. It would not have been really effective if we’re dealing with grammars. We didn’t want to put it that way. But that’s the request from our mentor.

Am I Happy??????

         Could we measure happiness with the money we have or with hi-tech lifestyle? The answer is No, definitely no. There are a lot of rich countries in the world but their life satisfactory is low. Why is that happened????

        I've made a video, kind of childish i guess but i think it's clearly defined what is happiness to me. Check this out!

          For me, happiness is not all about the money and hi-tech lifestyle. I am happy when I can contribute something to make this earth greener. I plan trees (not in big amounts but enough plantings on my garden). So, I hate seeing people cut trees so easily. Do you know that 22 TREES are needed by ONE SINGLE PERSON to get in the oxygen? I get the data from the Northwest Territories Forest Management (http://forestmanagement.enr.gov.nt.ca/forest_education/amazing_tree_facts.htm in 3rd January 2011 on 6 a.m.). So how could we get more oxygen to live in if others are still cutting the trees?

Measure The Use of Water

vi.sualize.us

          Do you know guys, actually to have the clean water that we spend for taking a bath, drinking, washing clothes, and other things, we have to take it from underneath the ground. It needs to be pumped to our house. And the most important thing that it requires the electricity. I just learned it from my environmental education class that it takes 0,0018 kWh for pumping only 1 liter of water and for every kWh we release 0,98 kg of CO2 (or if you don't trust me you can see and try this carbon calculator in 

www.90x2030.org.za

          Therefore I tried to count how much water I use in a day so that I could be aware of it. This is how I measure the water I use in a day:

1. First thing I measure my bath.

   You know what I use 58 litres of water just for brushing my tooth, facial washing, soap bathing, flushing the toilet, but it doesn't count for the creambathing. I did bathing twice: in the morning and in the afternoon, so those all count twice.

2. For the drinking

   I only drank 2,720 liters. I actually I don't like to drink a lot. Yeah, I know to drink water is good for my health but I just didn't aware of it.

           So, for the entire day I spent almost 60,7 liters of water. That was quite a spending. In other words, I have released 0,108 kg of CO2 (with all the calculating stuff I have told you above). I wonder how much trees I should plant in order to change my CO2 I have released into O2. That's what I didn't get in my class. I just got this question over my head when I wrote this. I should have been probably aware of it.

         I know we spend the water as if the water would always be there, like it won't be exhausted. Actually it's not, well it's not happening yet. But it might be someday. The water could run out if we do not spend it wisely. If we keep on pumping it from the ground, the water could run out. At least if we try to grow or plant trees that will sink in the water to their roots, and to the ground.