Student Profiles

“There is a problem happening all around the world,” exclaims 3rd grader Cassandra, who then goes on to name it: “This is called pollution.” In her “RANT on Air Pollution,” published in the 3rd-grade newsletter, the 3T Times, Cassandra tells her readers why it’s a problem (“it’s bad for animals and makes us cough”), where it comes from (“noxious gases and minute particles of solid and liquid matter”), and offers suggestions for what they might do about it (“Will you stop driving?” she asks. “You can ride buses, ride the subway, take the train or even tandem bikes!”).

And don’t even get this environmentally aware youngster started about smokestacks. “We should rip down those smokestacks,” she says. “Don’t you think so? I don’t know how to make things without smokestacks, but I know there must be another way. Perhaps if we all came together and thought about it there would be another way.” Perhaps indeed.