AAR for NYPS Environmental Week --
Thursday, July 20, 2006
PLUSEverything planned well beforehand
Wide range of activities
Engage a large group of people
Students had a lot of fun from the activities
Good communication with the school’s teacher in charge
Students learnt a lot on the conservation from the workshop
Managed to find prizes and low price
Good collaboration with NYPS
MINUS"Beach" cleanup not well planned
Poor class control
Presentation not toned down
Trainers not well-prepared
SUGGESTIONSMust Reece the place
Consult the teachers on the presentation
Attend training sessions on leadership skills
Learn to work with Primary School students
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whispered 12:10 PM
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From then till now... --
Monday, July 10, 2006
Mirror (Self-reflect)
I am an environmental activist who is inspired to evoke similar passions in fellow peers, Singaporeans and everyone in conserving the environment. Things always begin small, and should always start from oneself. So, preaching environmental conservation means that we ourselves, are also conserving the environment, by doing what-may-seem to be minor events, such as switching off the light when not in use, but in fact, may save up resources to come. Loving the environment means being kind to it, and not abusing it. The world is round, what goes around comes around. We should not be anthropocentric, and should really devote more effort in protecting the mother Earth that houses us.
I learnt that I have a deep love and passion for nature and biodiversity. It simply amazes me how a creepy crawly caterpillar and grow into a beautiful butterfly. It's simply the wonders of nature. Sure, we should learn all about the Sciences behind it, but what's important is also to indulge in nature, and fully enjoy it as much as possible without destroying it. Every living organism has the right to live, maybe even the pest cockroaches, and we should not resort to killing.
I also learnt that I am more of an effective and efficient background worker, whereby I can get tasks done easily right after the deadline is set. Nothing is impossible with the right attitude and passion. I do not score as well on leadership, as I am more of a people-peoples' person, and is unable to use my authority well.
I also picked up social skills, such as praising others when they deserve it, and should not always think passively. However, it is still important to balance the amount of praises and criticisms given.
My top strength recorded was "Empathy," enabling me to easily fit myself into the shoes of others to think on their behalf, before blurting out something. Although there were unhappiness during the Changi Beach, I was able to stomach them, and reflect upon the real reason behind why someone is unhappy, instead of merely being angry due to someone being unhappy over you. This will only create more unhappiness. Moreover, through this process, a bond is developed, whereby members of our group gets to know and understand each other better.
I have also become more responsible in terms of fulfilling my tasks given to me in a set required time, although I should train to do my work prior to the deadline, and not on the dot - on the deadline itself. I also learnt that it is every member' responsibility to keep a project, research, group work going. It is important so as each and every member are like a puzzle to a bigger puzzle, without which will not be complete.
This project enabled me to be more passionate towards the needs of the community, and really give a helping hand when people need it. Other than the fact that I may also need help in the future, helping others really allowed us to derive joy. It's just the smiles and feedback from our participants that made my day a perfect day.
Through the whole process, I am able to become more bold in terms of presentation, more creative when brainstorming for ideas, and also more willing to talk and share instead of being overly-introverted.
I guess I have no regrets so far in doing this project. All the above will enable me to communicate better with my colleagues, and also be able to trash out ideas easily.
Microscope (Make small exp. large)
I have learnt much in terms of dealing with people, those with different backgrounds and understandings. It was of much difference in teaching the children at NYPS as compared to the students in our school. Firstly, the attention span of children was shorter, therefore, games (which we came out in in the workshop) were integrated in to sustain the children's interest. Likewise, information should also come in bite-size information, so the children won't be bored out by the 'big' words which they may not be able to understand. Therefore, it is important to understand the needs of a target group, before help is administered, to provide a best remedy.
I feel that the peak of every event is when participants give positive feedback. It really make you feel relieved and glad that what you did is actually of use and help.
All of us can do our part in helping the environment, and we need to expand our target group to more schools across the nation etc. especially those schools with less environmental ideals. Collaboration can also be done with NEA to reduce the number of plastic bags used in Singapore, which is still a pressing issue.
Binoculars (Bring distance to fore)
There's a need to incalcate children with environmental-conservation ideals as it is always better to start young. Therefore, by collaborating with schools to involve students in competitions, talks, exhibitions, shows, fieldtrips, workshops etc, students will thus be able to learn environment ideals.
I feel that there is still a lot more to be done to make Singapore a 'true-blue' garden city as not only has the city need to be pretty, but Singaporean minds should be also geared towards protecting and cleaning our homeland. If everyone were to play a part, and not be anthropocentric, the world will be a better place to live in, with a better environment and a better mind.
Boon Haow
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whispered 11:01 PM
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From this SL project, I have learnt quite a bit about myself, about my capabilities, and I realize that my organisational skills have improved over time.
When I first started out working on Changi Beach, the logistics was too messy, and being the OS, I was always confused about what to do, how to manage the team. It being my first time managing something so big, I was at a loss often, and the teachers had to do a bit more hand-holding sometimes before we could get things done. Things were also quite last-minute, though it was unintentional.
There was once I almost cried over the organization of Changi Beach.
It made me learn that different people think differently, and thus comments towards your work differs, when comment is given by a Humanities teacher and by a Science teacher. The teacher happened not to be very encouraging about things, and I felt exasperated that I did so much, but the teacher did not praise much and was very sarcastic about it all.
Sadly it soured relations between us, but I really learnt what it felt like to be criticized this bad, and it made me more mindful about giving constructive comments.Thankfully, things turned out better on the day of the event, without too major hiccups. Though unforeseen circumstances emerged, we managed to deal with them ad-hoc, and Changi Beach fieldtrip went by without any emergency or bad events.
Learning from Changi Beach and the AAR conducted, we learnt not to commit the same fallacies again, and set out to do better.
The next activity was the Biodiversity Sabbatical. Organization was done earlier, and as I was not involved with this activity due to my schedule, I am not in the position to comment too much, but I heard feedback was quite positive, which is a booster to us and their confidence, to do better.
Following which, the activity next was Kindness Week. We were informed quite late about this, and thus we went into a rush trying to prepare everything in time.
Thankfully, little last-minute work was done due to good planning in advance, and the demands of the event was not as heavy. I learnt that with planning, there is no need to do last-minute work, which sometimes I have a tendency to do.
I also realized, that in people's pursuit to be kind to others, to be kind to animals, even in Courtesy or Kindness Campaigns,
we have always left out someone to be kind to: Mother Earth. That was the purpose behind Kindness Week's theme of Kindness to the Environment. Without our environment, we would not be able to thrive, to be able to do anything at all.
NYPS Environment Week was really a culmination of all our experimentation and hard work. It was a daunting task to prepare 5 - 6 different types of activities to be organized at NYPS in one week. Especially since the activities varied in type, it was even harder to plan. But our proposal was accepted, and things just flowed as we worked along, without encountering major issues. From there,
I really learnt my abilities, how far I was able to stretch myself. I didnt know I could possibly organize a larger-scale event like Environment Week.
But I think more can be done.
Hopefully we can bring this Environment Week concept and spread to other primary schools, and even help them organize such activities. It will become like an educational event package for primary schools, which might be one-off events, but
with continuation every year, will foster students' concepts of environment conservation, and constantly remind them of the need to save Mother Earth before it's too late.We must start now, we are already having a taste of what it might be like in the future, with scorching hot weather and burning days hot nights.
Wei Seng
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whispered 10:21 PM
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NYPS Environmental Week Reflections --
Sunday, July 09, 2006
To spread the message of environmental conservation and awareness to care for the environment, we organized a series of activities in conjunction with the Nanyang Primary School’s environmental week. These activities included a quiz cum exhibition, slogan competition, drawing competition, a workshop and a beach cleanup. These activities were targeted at different levels so that every student could participate in them.
I would say the exhibition went well as we were well prepared with the posters to be put up. These posters were done by Ortus Secondary 3s who had went for the Changi Beach Cleanup in February. During the Youth Day holiday, we went to the school to put up these posters. In addition to the exhibition, I was also put in charge of designing a quiz for the students visiting the exhibition. One of the main challenges I faced was that the original open-ended style of the quiz was rejected by the school and I had to come up with a MCQ style quiz to facilitate easier marking for the teachers.
We also faced many challenges during the preparation of the workshop as we had to lower the standard of the original PowerPoints designed. We had to incorporate games into the workshop to sustain the students’ interests. Then we were informed a week before the workshop that students from Brunei on an exchange programme would be joining in for the workshop as well. Initially we thought it would merely mean more people participating in the workshop. However on the actual day, we realized that these students could not understand English and so had difficulty understanding what was being taught. This contributed to the rowdiness and luckily there the students from Nanyang Primary School translated our words into Malay for them.
Nevertheless, the games were equally chaotic since the students from Brunei could not understand game instructions leading to confusions. We only managed to reduce the rowdiness by giving out sweets to encourage the students to participate in discussions. I feel that the workshop could have been better planned, as the instructions for the games were unclear even to the Nanyang Primary School students. The PowerPoint presentations were also too short and there was minimal interaction between the presenters and students. On the overall, the workshop was successful in raising awareness of environmental conservation among students and many gave feedback that they had learnt much from the workshop.
Good communication was crucial in the success of these activities as it ensured everyone is updated regularly on upcoming events and meetings. Members were able to better exchange information and it was easier to compile work plans for each event. Communication was important in liaising with Nanyang Primary School and informing them of updates and allowing fast and efficient exchange of information on both sides.
Efficient was another factor contributing to the success of this event as everyone worked on a tight schedule to complete their tasks. As each member of the group was assigned a particular event, it was easier for us to focus on our tasks and share the workload evenly. In conclusion, the Nanyang Primary School environmental week was a success and every single event was well executed.
Jianghao
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whispered 9:35 PM
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It was of great enthusiasm, fun, interest and passion that we embarked on the collaboration with NYPS for an Environmental Week over at their school. This event, as compared to previous events, were much larger scale, featuring a week of events including an exhibition on coastal conservation (targeted at the upper primary mainly) and a quiz set by our own members, environmental awareness competitions – drawing (for lower primary 1 – 3) and bookmark-cum-slogan design (for upper primary 4), a workshop on Biodiversity and Conservation - integrating games and presentation (for upper primary 5) and also a beach-clean up at West Coast Park. NYPS is having her own environmental competition, likewise for us, thus presenting a win-win situation.
We collaborated with the NYPS teacher i/c Mrs Loo Peck Fong and the school's Operations Manager, Mr William Woo, and discussed with them on the proposals and the operations of the event to ensure smooth delivery of the whole event.
The exhibition is for the whole school and the theme is conservation awareness. Posters for the exhibition include those done up by our very own Secondary 3 Ortus pupils when they cleaned up Changi Beach and from NEA. This is to promote coastal beach conservation among the pupils and highlight the rich biodiversity of our coastal environment as something for conservation. The quiz that comes with it (for upper primary) involves only multiple choices questions (so to suit the primary level). The public (surrounding neighbourhood) were also involved as we invitation leaflets were distributed to ask them to come for the exhibition. A newspaper recycling corner was also set up for the public to bring in old newspaper to recycle. We brought the posters over and set them up at their canteen during Youth Day. The setting up of the posters enable us to learn to fully utilize the space given to us. I also did up the leaflet, enabling me to hone my photoshop designing skills.
Both competitions is to allow students to use creative methods to express their thoughts on saving the environment except that the drawing competition is targeted at lower primary pupils and the slogan competition is targeted at the Primary 4 pupils accordance to their capabilities. The slogan competition is also tied in to the school’s own assignment project for the Primary 4 pupils. It was really encouraging to see the number of submissions for the competitions, noting that there are also many other environmental activists like us, out there.
The workshop on environmental conservation and biodiversity aims to increase environmental awareness and allow students to find out what they can do to help play a role in saving the environment. It targets the upper primary 5 pupils involving a class of about 20 – 30 pupils with other students from Burma. It involves fun games to easily attract primary school pupils’ attention such as Janga and "Hungry Fishermen" and tying them in with environmental conservation and interactive presentation so not to bore the pupils. As we have already conducted similar events during the sabbatical, it was still average in terms of conducting the course. However, it was harder to control the pupils as the Burma students were unable to understand English well enough for some of the terms, and some of the students were quite rowdy, therefore we was not be able to maximise the full time given to us to conduct the course properly. Nevertheless, some of the students were very co-operative. Therefore, through this, I learnt more about controlling of young primary school students. Firstly, the space we were at, might be probably too huge to accomodate them, therefore people were scattered and it will be hard for us to control. Thus, a classroom would have been better. Next, we should enforce stricter discipline throughout the whole lesson. We also learnt about better preparation as we had not rehearsed a lot before the real event, leading to the rowdiness. Last but not least, the beach clean-up will be held next week which hopes to increase students’ awareness towards keeping beaches clean and to experience what it feels like to pick litter, and the importance of not littering and keeping the environment clean.
Although this time it was of a much larger scale, after learning from our previous organisations, it was much easier this time as we just implement what we learnt last time here. Moreover, the events were somewhat the same, just that the key factor here is to tone down the language used to suit the primary school students.
Through the planning of the various events, we learnt what constitutes organization, planning, inclement programmes, reviewing, logistics, objectives, and in turn fine-tune our planning to the best. We also learnt how to lower the understanding level for the primary school pupils by putting ourselves in their shoes.
Boon Haow
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whispered 9:21 PM
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It feels good to be able to contribute to your alma mater. As part of Service Learning Project to increase the awareness of environment conservation, our group decided to approach nanyang primary school to promote environmental awareness on top of our own school. Coincidentally, the school is also embarking on an environmental competition that requires the involvement of the whole school.
So we came up with the idea of having an environmental week in the school that can involve the different levels. Under the mentorship of the teacher i/c Mrs Loo Peck Fong and the school's Operations Manager, Mr William Woo, we planned a series of events for the school.
Firstly, we have a schoolwide exhibition on coastal conservation. It is held at the school canteen where pupils are free to view during their recess. There is also a quiz regarding the exhibition where all students can participate in. As part of the outreach programme, the school has also invited residents living nearby to view the posters and bring in used newspaper for recycling.
Next, we have a slogan cum bookmark competition for the upper primary students. Students are required to design a bookmark containing a slogan that can promote environmental awareness. Simultaneously, there is the lower primary's drawing competition where the theme was on Saving our Environment.
Then, for the Primary 5 students, we organised a workshop on Biodiversity and Conservation. It is a 2-hour workshop held for the school's environmental monitors. There were also 20 students from brunei that were in NYPS for immersion programme that sat in our workshop. During the workshop, on top of lectures, we had interesting and interactive game for the students. I can see that the students enjoyed it a lot. The students rated us 4/5 overall.
Lastly, for the school's brownies who had to do some Community Involvement Programme activities, we held a beach cleanup at West Coast Park. On top of the usual picking of litters, we included some handouts on classifying the litter and pose reflective questions like "why are the rubbish there?", "why can't we throw litters in the beach?" etc.
Overall,
I feel that this has been an enriching experience as it is the first time I organised an event for such a big target audience. I would say we wouldn't have done it without the guidance of the two personnel from NYPS, Mrs Loo and Mr Woo.
Yee Jiunn
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whispered 5:40 PM
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Discovery of myself through the SL project --
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Through this SL project I feel that i had learnt more about myself. I learnt that we should be more proactive in comunication with one another. This is what I had not done in the past where I would be more passive and wait for things to happen before responding. Being more proactive helps me to learn of the problems within each project we undertake and thus we are able to solve problems when one is spotted much more quickly thus improving our efficiency when planning activities. This couls be seen from the differences from the Changi Beach activity as compared to the one week activity prepared for Nanyang Primary School.
After organizing many different activity for environmental conservation my knowledge on environmental conservation increased. This also brought about more knowledge of the suffering of the animals living in the sea and animals living in land with either a polluted habitat or a lose of habitat. This made me feel sad for them as I put myself in their shoes and imagine the problems which could be faced by these animals. This was not present in me in the beginning of the project. I was passionate about the conservation of the environment more for our own future generations instead of empathizing the animals which live in these habitats which are polluted or cleared out by humans for their own gains. With this increased empathy for the organisms living in these habitats we are trying to conserve, I felt a stronger sense of responsibility to make each activity a success so that the maximum number of people would become more aware of the plight of the organisms living in the areas which are poluted or destroyed.
Other then learning more about myself, I also learnt more about the people around me. Like my teammates we were more close up at the beginning of the project and would not voice out some of the ideas we had when discussing with our mentors or brainstorming for ideas for the different activity organized. However towards the end of the project espcially during the Nanyang Primary School environment awareness week activity, we are more open and could communicate pretty well with the teachers and voice out our opinions leading to many ideas generated and more activities were organized to cater for the different levels of students in Nanyang Primary School.
The project was enjoyable with the teammates as we were able to communicate well with each other and able to work well with one another. However, this project was made more memorable by the students response which was very positive. One example would be the students response in the biodiversity sabbatical where the students reflect very positively and learned alot about the importance of conservation of biodiversity. Such positive response pushed us on and inspired us to do better for the next acitivity conducted. However, we also hope that the students would also become passionate about environmental conservation and thus push for being more environmentally friendly within their social circles and thus helping the environment.
One of the underlying problem behind the pollution of environment is that Singaporeans are generally environmentally apathetic. They do not know of the grave consequences of the small things which they do daily but would affected the environment negatively. This problem could be solved by pushing for more environmental awareness between singaporeans. This would then lead to Singaporeans being more environmentally aware of the things which they can do to conserve the environment. If these campaigns, lectures, camps. seminars, workshops, exhibitions are successful, Singaporeans being stakeholders of the environ ment would want to conserve it for the future generation and to boost economy in the long run, this would then lead to a better environment on the whole which would be in accordance to what our project is hoping would be able to achieve at least on a small scale.
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whispered 10:36 PM
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PlanningHaving picked up experience from organizing the Changi Beach fieldtrip & Kindness Week activities, planning for Environment Week for NYPS appeared to be a breeze.
We met up with Mrs Loo Peck Fong & Mr William Woo of NYPS about every fortnight. When we first met, we thrashed out the basic details of the Environment Week and what NYPS wants. With their demands in mind, we sat down together and planned for all our activities at NYPS.
We came out with the following activities to be introduced during Environment Week on Term 3 Week 2:
- Exhibition on coastal environment conservation, done by participants of the Changi Beach fieldtrip
- Drawing competition for Primary 1 - 3 students, with the theme of saving the environment
- Slogan & Bookmark design competition for Primary 4 students
- Workshop on environmental conservation & biodiversity for Primary 5 students
- Beach cleaning at West Coast Beach for Brownies
Activities that were proposed targetted different levels, and each level had activities on Environment Week. When our proposal to NYPS was accepted, we started drafting a workplan for Environment Week, from the managing of budget for prizes to preparing rubrics and criteria for judging of art and bookmark pieces. Meanwhile, I prepared handouts for the activity I was in charge of: West Coast Beach Cleanup. Similar handouts to that of Changi Beach were prepared, with another beach litter checklist.
At every meeting, we discussed more and more details about NYPS Environment Week. Changes to the Work Plan were made, and it was decided that an Outreach Programme would be included. This meant residents around NYPS (Coronation Road, King's Road) were allowed to visit NYPS to take a look at the exhibits on display and deposit newspapers for recycling.
Execution
As the Environment Week drew nearer, we started procuring prizes for all the different competitions we were organizing. Teachers were asked to brief their students about Environment Week and the upcoming activities they could take part in. We got all handouts and relevant materials printed prior to Environment Week.
On Youth Day, the day before Environment Week commences, we went down to NYPS for the last time before the activities begin. We set up the exhibits for the exhibition in the school canteen with the help of Mr Woo and the school cleaners.
NYPS Environment Week lasted from Tuesday 4 July to Friday 7 July, and students could view exhibits put up in the canteen and participate in a quiz about the exhibition that allowed them to win attractive prizes.
Meanwhile, winners of the Art & Slogan competition have been selected, with prizes to be awarded to them on the Monday after Environment Week.
On Wednesday 5 July, the Workshop on Environment Conservation & Biodiversity took place in the school and the other four members of the group conducted the workshop for 20 Environment Monitors & Environment Champions. We were also honoured to have with us 20 visitors from Brunei to sit in during our workshop and join our students in the fun-filled workshop that not just involved lessons but also games.
The last activity of Environment Week is to take place on this coming Friday 14/7, the West Coast Beach Cleanup.
ReflectionsI felt a sense of achievement for having organized the inaugral Environment Week for NYPS.
Our organization skills improved, with no major technical or logistical problems during the planning and execution of Environment Week, and we are working better and better as a team. There were no heated arguments, and
everyone did their part and helped out with everyone elses' work, encouraging each other along the way. The group dynamics was there.
We had to cater to the needs of the school, so our activities had to be relevant and moulded for the school's use.
This project actually presented a
Win-Win situation. With the inaugral Environment Week,
NYPS is poised to win an award on Environmental Conservation that it has been aiming for. This award evaluates schools on their environment-friendliness and initiatives rolled out to boost environment awareness in the school. Organizing the Environment Week allows them to satisfy the last criteria they have failed to meet on the award, and thus they will qualify for this award.
For us, it was a
good experience in honing our organization skills, especially since this caters to an even larger audience: the whole school, including multiple activities for different levels,
unlike in organizing Kindenss Week, which was less demanding due to the limited activities planned.Considering it being our first attempt in organizing something for another school, I think overall we have been successful in organizing this event, and our method of exhibitions, talks and competitions to boost awareness of environment conservation is working so far.
But I think some areas of improvement can be identified:
- Communication between organizers and NYPS teachers-in-charge was not as good at times as often we were uncontactable to them and vice-versa
- Meetings tended to be long as forgotten issues were thrashed out only on the spot or organizers and teachers will engage in seperate discussions on their own, causing disengagement sometimes.
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whispered 3:54 PM
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Environment Week Reflection --
Friday, July 07, 2006
On the third of July to the seventh of July, we organized activites for Nanyang primary school. This week was coined as Environmental awareness week and throughout this week we organized an exhibition, a slogan compeitition, a drawing compeitition and a workshop for students in Nanyang primary school.
Through this event
I learned how to communicate better with teachers and fit into the needs of the school. We have to follow some of the guidelines of the school and timing of the school as they themselves have to accomplish certain task set out by the NEA. This makes it harder for us due to time constrains as they have to finish the whole project by a certain time. Furthermore, the school teachers are very busy, thus we it was hard to find a time where all of us can meet together.
Personally, I also
learned the importance of getting everything ready early. This would help to give ample time to react to any sudden change of plans. This is especially so for the workshop conducted for the primary school students. Initially we did not get the janga set beforehand, thus we had to quickly borrow at the day before. This made us unable to focus on rehearsing the day before making us nervous during the day of presentation. Luckily the presentation went pretty well and the students were very cooperative.
For the group
this was the first time we are organizing an activity for another school. All other activities done were focused in the school. This created some problems as we were not really familiar with the school and what the students level of awareness in environmental conservation are. However with the help of the teachers-in-charge of these activities, we were able to cater the the students need. Other than that the teachers also helped by organizing our time when the most number of students can join our activities. These made our activity known to more of the students and thus was able to reach out to more and hopefully more of the students in Nanyang primary school would be more environmentally friendly and more passionate in environmental conservation.
Overall the activites organized for the students were quite successful. The slogan compeitition aimed at the lower primary students receive many slogans which were well designed. The art compeitition was also well received by the lower primary students with many good entries. The workshop was also quite successful as the feedback from the students were positive and that they had learned alot about the importance of conservation.
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whispered 3:52 PM
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