A flowery visit!
As planned with several teachers and Mr Hombrecher last week, we had a get-together in school today at lunch time. This meeting would enable us to reflect on what we achieved during the trips and to share our comments or suggestions for improvements for future visits.
Just as we were sitting down around the table, Mr Hombrecher presented me with a lovely bouquet of flowers freshly picked from the institute’s garden: a token of appreciation for all my hard work and effort. I feel very grateful to have received such a simple yet meaningful gift as I was not expecting any appreciation at all for my devotion in this project.
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| Today's meeting with Mr Green on the left, Mrs Hoffzimmer, Mr Hombrecher and myself on the right! |
Together with the teachers whose classes I accompanied this trip with, we began to exchange our opinions of the success of the trips and about what we learned during the whole experience. Simultaneously, Mrs Hoffzimmer produced a print-out of our school’s November newsletter to our guest. Within the newletter, there was one full page dedicated to the excursions - including a brief explanation, photographs that I snapped and even reviews of three students sharing their personal experiences! In addition to the flowers, I felt overjoyed to see the newsletter page - check it out:
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| Taken from Cologne International School November 2014 Newsletter |
Overall, we had a very fruitful discussion regarding the current state of the show garden and also talked about the benefits and importance for the younger generations, i.e. the ‘city’ children, some of whom have never played in a garden before, to see and experience such natural environment in action. Furthermore, we talked about how consumers have a fixed vision of how vegetables in supermarkets should appear. As a consequence of this perfectionist vision we own and the tough demand we place, consumers throw away all the undesired food and immediately label them as waste. How irresponsible of us! Apparently, in Germany alone, every person wastes an average of 80 kilograms per annum! It is a shame that we raise major awareness about poverty in other parts of the world when we can simply begin change within ourselves in our own countries.
Additionally, another science teacher of the secondary school began to discuss with Mr Hombrecher about potential visits with older grades. I am very pleased to have been able to meet and keep in touch with such people and to make connections between our international peace school and their international research institute.
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| A signature collection sheet to record all the supervisors that were involved in this project |
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| My Numbers spreadsheet to record my progress during this CAS activity as well as all the hours completed |
This CAS activity has thus officially come to a successful end. I have learned so much over the past weeks as I organised and executed the trips (altogether spending a total time of about 17 hours!). I hope to have a chance to work with them again in the future.
Evita ☺
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