A day in the life of an S1 pupil: 19th May 2050
As I walked to school along the green corridor, the windmills in everybody’s
garden were whizzing round furiously. In the olden days the green corridor
was a road but nowadays it part of a network of pathways lined with flowers
and trees, which provide a safe paths for walking and cycling.
First lesson I had after registration was Litter Picking. We walked along
our high street picking up every bit of litter we saw. We then moved on to
our local park before heading back to the school to sort it out. It was my
turn on the Reckybob, a brand new machine that sorts out all the metals,
plastics, glass and paper into different piles. Our school has nearly reached
our target for collecting plastics. Once we reach our target we send all the
plastics off to the factory and they will make brand new furniture for our
common room with it.
After the bell had rung for the next class we all cleaned ourselves up and
walked happily to Recycled Art. The past couple of lessons we have been
working on making tin can sculptures made from the tins collected in litter
picking. My sculpture is coming on well. When it is finished it will be an
abstract dog which I am going to display in my allotment.
Just as I was finishing off one of the legs of my dog, the bell went and my
whole class walked to Environmental Technical. This week we started
something new. We are making a rain water harvester for our allotments.
My harvester is going to be shaped like a rain drop. It will collect rain water
and slowly release it on to the plants.
I had finished my design and was ready to go the next class when the bell
rang - Gardening! Every pupil in the school gets their own allotment,
although some people have greener fingers than others. This month I am
planting cherry tomatoes and golden pumpkins. I am then going to pull up
the rhubarb I planted last year. All the food we grow is taken to the school
canteen or the local old folks’ home and made into lunch or dinner.
We had a short break for lunch where we I sat down with my friends eating
what we had grown. Today’s lunch was pasta and broad bean salad with
rhubarb and custard for pudding. I really enjoyed it.
After lunch it was time for Maths. I love the Maths classroom because its
really high tech. All the walls are touch-screen walls and each pupil puts on
headphones and gets taught by their own virtual teacher. However we each
share our teacher with two other people from around the world. At the
moment I happen to share mine with someone from Hong Kong and
somebody from Canada. The whole room is powered by the solar panels on
the roof.
After that exciting class we moved on to my final class of the day, History.
Recently in History we have been learning about how people used to live
back in 2014. They used to all drive to school which pollutes the air and it
also meant they weren’t very fit and healthy. However it was difficult for
them because the roads were so busy it was not very easy to walk or cycle.
They only had windmills on hills, not in every garden so they still got a lot of
their power from dirty fuels like coal, oil and gas. And most shocking of all,
they used to recycle less than half their waste and bury the rest. Think of
all the useful materials they used to bury in the ground!
As I walked home down the breezy green corridor, chatting with my
friends, we decided we would much rather live the way we live now than the
way they lived then!