The 21st Century Schoolhouse Project
The International Youth Environmental Summit
The students at our school, the High School for Environmental Studies, come from all different parts of Israel, creating for a wide variety of backgrounds.
All of the students come to learn in our school
in the Negev, a desert region in the southern part of the country.
Bedouin Leopard Bird Ancient Ruins Timna Park The Mushroom
We are all interested in the environment, from different
aspects, whether it be through computerss or through hands-on experience
in the field during trips in nature. There are many types of activities in
the area of environmental education at our school such as lectures, nature
courses, and outdoor field trips.
Last year we held an international conference at our school, called "Negev97 Environment and Communication", which was the 11th Caretakers of the Environment International conference. Each year the Caretakers of the Environment International organization holds their conference in a different country. This year we were the major organizers of this conference in Israel.
During this conference, environmental issues were
explored through six week long workshops. One workshop dealt with "Dangers
to the Desert". Among the dangers discussed was the issue of toxic waste
and the Ramat-Hovav national toxic waste disposal site.
Sculpture in the Desert Working in the Field Video Conference with Sweden
We chose the topic of "toxic waste" because this
is an area close to us as we live close to Ramat-Hovav, the toxic waste disposal
site, and we are directly affected by the goings-on at this site.
Unfortunately, the Negev is seen in Israel as a
remote area and as such it is often used as a place to dump industrial waste,
without taking into consideration the great harm this causes to the surrounding
environment and the people living in this area.
In our research of this issue, we met with different
groups involved inthe dispute over Ramat-Hovav, members of "green" organizations
such as Greenpeace, and officials representing the Ramat-Hovav site. We also
researched toxic waste from a global point of view, finding a lot of
information on this topic
over the Internet.
