Earth Day at DniproWOA: Environmental & Climate Literacy

This afternoon the Gabfest club session (Dnipro Window on America center, Ukraine) was dedicated to the observance of the UN Mother Earth day.
Earth Day now gathers over 1 billion people each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.
The theme for 2017 is “Environmental & Climate Literacy”. It aims to empower everyone with the knowledge of climate change in order to inspire action towards environmental protection.
The Club members were urged to make small green changes in their lifestyle:
-    Walk to work, cycle or take public transport
-    Cut back on single use plastics
-    Recycle
-    Go paperless
-    Go meat or dairy free at least once a week
-    Plant a tree
-    Buy local produce.
The group was offered educational videos about the “carbon footprint” and supermarkets’ secrets. The video introduced a lot of environmental terms and explained some “green changes” that were not clear to the session participants.
The discussion that followed engaged our American friends- Mr. Jason and Mr. Stephen and covered some controversial aspects of the climate change theory.
Number of participants – 33 persons.

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Earth Day

Today’s the session of the Dnipropetrovsk Window on America center’s Gabfest Club was dedicated to the observance of the EARTH DAY. The Club members told about their activities that help to save the planet. The stories ranged from the use of electric public transportation to garbage separation and compost pits arrangement. Many participants felt short for specific words. Today’s session was a wonderful opportunity to introduce the group to the American English at State’s “Green Vocabulary”. It presented the club members with definitions of key words and provided contextual examples. Introduction of the green vocabulary enabled the group to better understand the illustrative videos – among them climate change and cheeseburger footprint videos. 

The second part of the session dealt with a “Success Story” of the long- time Club member – Mr. Nestor. Nestor worked as a fire- fighter in Dnipropetrovsk, but he had a dream to become a sea-man. We supported Nestor in his efforts to graduate from the marine college at the age of 44. Today Nestor attended the Gabfest Club session and surprised his fellow members with his fluent English.  Our friend completed his first contract as a navigational officer on a river-sea cargo ship and came to share his success with us. Nestor showed the group a slide show of his work at sea; he commented the photos and answered the questions of the group about the geography of his international sea travel, his routine work aboard, etc.
Participants number – 19 persons.
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Arbor Day

Today’s session of the Gabfest Club (at Window on America center Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) was dedicated to the observance of the Earth Day and Arbor Day in the USA.
We watched and discussed the YouTube video about Urban Forests in the US cities. From this movie we learned about a “Million Trees for a City” campaign and the important role of trees in urban areas. Our club member Prince was told about Ukrainian traditions of tree cultivation in big cities and in return told us about the traditions of his own country.
The Club members were offered an activity that was associated with tree names. They were given a list of Ukrainian folk songs in which popular trees were mentioned. The task was to listen to a song’s lyrics and translate it into English. The task was quite challenging: besides translation of the lyrics to explain the symbolism of the folk poetry. But most of the club members succeeded in the task.
In the last part of the session the new book displays were presented to the group. “The New Arrivals” display attracted the attentions of the most active club members. “The Donations and Donators” display reminded the group about our American and Ukrainian friends who gave their books to the library.
The session was very educational to all participants.
Number of participants – 12.

The Faces of the Climate Change

Today’s session of the Gabfest speaking club (at Window on America center Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) started with the discussion of the tragic events that happened in the United States.  We have expressed condolences to the tragic deaths of the Americans during the explosions in Boston and Texas. The Club members exchanged information and details about the above explosions received from the media news reports.
The official topic of the session was “Earth Day 2013”. The topic of this year is “The Faces of the Climate Change”.

We have read and translated an article that defined the recent climate changes. 2012 was marked by many climate change milestones. Arctic sea-ice cover reached a record low in September, a new high-water mark in a long-term decline. The United States experienced its hottest year ever; this, after the World Meteorological Organization announced that the first decade of this century was the hottest on record for the entire planet.
The next activity was to describe images and editorial cartoons illustrating the climate change. The most impressive and scary was the poster of the WWF.The animated cartoon about the Florida turtles and the climate change prepared the group for a more complicated video on climate change issues. The discussion was wrapped up by discussing how each of the club members combats climate changes. The majority of the groups try to diminish the amount of rubbish, reuse plastic bags, and grow plants and trees.
The session was educational and important for the environmental awareness.
The number of participants – 19 persons.
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