Muheim Memorial Elementary School students are learning the issues affecting people worldwide.
The students, under the direction of teachers Jolene Anderson and Liliana Pesce, researched different issues across the globe and created posters on the information.
They gathered last Monday at Bovill Square to show off their posters and help bring attention to the global issues on a local level. The topics selected range from bee killing, the great Pacific garbage patch, and child slavery on the cocoa farm, just to name a few.
Mme Anderson and Pesce said the initiative began one day after school.
“It started out as something small … and it turned into something larger, the kids just kind of took off with the topic and really got inspired by certain issues that are happening,” said Anderson.
Child slavery on the cocoa farm was one of the topics that resonate with the kids. The two behind the poster were Amelia Mosumgaard and Maya Clarkedoering.
In researching the topic, they learned that child slavery is when children from around the ages of five to 15 are taken from their homes thinking they’ll be paid and they work long and hard hours.
They both learned nearly two-thirds of the world’s cocoa is produced on the Ivory Coast where child labour is commonly used to obtain cocoa.
Amelia said the way we can help is to purchase fair trade chocolate.
“Fair trade chocolate is when you know that the chocolate that you buy is slave free, so they didn’t use slaves or anything to get that chocolate; they paid their people to work, to get their chocolate,” she said.
As a teacher, Pesce even learned a lot from all of the projects.
“I don’t think I understood the degree in which some of these issues affected individuals in the world,” she said.
Kaleb Bourrie didn’t know what to do with his poster on until he went home and researched the killing of bees.
“First I had no clue what it was until I came home and asked [my mom] … I researched into it and then I found out it was pretty big and happening,” he said.
“If bees die, there’s nothing to pollinate [flowers], so then there’s no food.”
Ashton Wille and Toan Krauskopf did their poster on homelessness.
“There can be people with lots of money and then someone struggling can have nothing in their life,” said Krauskopf.
The two classes took away a better understanding of the issues locally and internationally and are hoping to make a difference.
“I had no idea this was a thing and I was fascinated by all the crazy things and that we need to teach people. We should stop buying some of this stuff,” said Amelia.
