environment

LET'S DREAM OF

A SAFE ENVIRONMENT

A definition

When we talk about our environment we mean everything in the world around us that surrounds and affects all life on earth, including the air, food chains, the water cycle, plants, animals and other humans.

What is environment?

• We breathe oxygen from the air
• We get water from the rain which fills our lakes, rivers and creeks and which we store in dams, reservoirs and water tanks.
• We get food from the plants, animals, fish and birds.

school year 2018/2019

IC Sant'Alfonso Maria dei Liguori in Pagani

#special edition

how can we save our environment?

Basic needs

Because there are five basic needs of human beings from the environment and they are oxygen, water, food, shelter and warmth. We get these from the planet on which we live.

Why is environment important?

Polluting is killing

The impact of these pollutants on the environment has two main consequences:

As for the damage to the environment we can list four main types of consequences:

A synonym for dirty environment.

Pollution consists in the direct or indirect introduction into an environment of substances or even of energy capable of transforming the natural equilibriums, also producing effects on human health.

The main cause of pollution is plastic. In the Pacific Ocean there is "the plastic island", a collection of waste.

Pollution - causes

Land pollution

Air pollution

Water pollution

Land pollution is anything that damages or contaminates the land. There are many causes of land pollution: garbage, mining, farming, factories.

Land pollution

Air pollution is when unwanted chemicals, gasses, and particles enter the air and the atmosphere causing harm to animals and damaging the natural cycles of the Earth.

Air pollution

Water pollution is when waste, chemicals, or other particles cause a body of water to become harmful to the fish and animals that need the water to survive.

Water pollution

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LAND POLLUTION

What is Land Pollution?

Land pollution is anything that damages or contaminates the land.

Causes of Land Pollution

There are many causes of land pollution:

• garbage that ends up in a landfill or on the ground
• mining that can also release toxic chemicals into the air and soil
• farming that produces a lot of pollution in the form of chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides (animal waste from livestock can also pollute the soil and, eventually, the water supply)
• factories that produce a significant amount of garbage and waste (some of this waste is in the form of damaging chemicals)

Effects on the Environment

This type of land pollution not only can hurt animals and their habitats but also is ugly and destroys the beauty of nature.

Some types of land pollution like mining, farming and factories can allow for harmful chemicals to enter into the soil and water.

Effects on Health

Different kinds of land pollution have been known to have adverse effects on the health of animals and humans. The harmful chemicals that can get into the soil and water can cause cancers, deformities, and skin problems.

Landfills

Landfills are areas where garbage is placed in the land. Some of the newest landfills even try to capture methane gas from escaping and use it to produce energy.

What is biodegradable?

Trash that is made of organic substances will eventually decay and become a part of the environment. This type of trash is called biodegradable. Different types of materials take different amounts of time to decay. Paper can decompose in around a month, but it takes a plastic bag over 20 years to decompose.

What can you do to help?
Here are four things people can do to reduce land pollution:

1. Recycle
2. Produce less trash
3. Pick up trash
4. Composting (composting is when you collect organic waste and store it so it breaks down to where it can be used for fertilizer)

GLOSSARY

LAND POLLUTION= inquinamento terrestre

WASTE= rifiuto

LANDFILLS= discariche

TRASH= spazzatura

DECAY= decadimento

AIR POLLUTION

What is air pollution?

Air pollution is when unwanted chemicals, gasses, and particles enter the air and the atmosphere causing harm to animals and damaging the natural cycles of the Earth.

Causes of Air Pollution

Air pollution is caused by humans, but by nature, too. One of the artificial causes is urban traffic: we use personal cars to move in the city while we could use public transport (trains, buses, bike…). Human air pollution is caused by things such as factories, power plants, cars, airplanes, chemicals, fumes from spray cans, and methane gas from landfills.

Natural causes are eruptions of volcanoes, dust storms, and forest fires which release toxic gasses that go to ozone barrier.

Effects on the Environment
Air pollution and the release of gasses into the atmosphere can have many negative effects on the environment.

• Global warming
• The ozone layer (the ozone layer helps protect us from harmful rays from the sun)
• Acid Rain

Effects on Health
Air pollution can also make people sick. It can make it difficult to breathe and cause diseases such as lung cancer, respiratory infections, and heart disease. Air pollution can be especially dangerous to children living in big cities with bad smog.

Air Quality Index
The Air Quality Index is a way for the government to alert people to the quality of the air and how bad the air pollution is in an area or city. They use colors to help you determine if you should go outside.

• Green - the air is good
• Yellow - the air is moderate
• Orange - the air is unhealthy for sensitive people like the elderly, children, and those with lung diseases
• Red - Unhealthy
• Purple - Very unhealthy
• Maroon - Hazardous

What can we do to help?

One of the simplest solutions is to use public transport more because it produces less polluting gases. We should reduce electricity waste and we should also prefer craft products.

GLOSSARY

POWER PLANTS=Centrali elettriche

SPRAY CANS=Bombolette spray

LANDFILLS=Discariche

HAZARDOUS=Pericoloso

CRAFT PRODUCTS=Prodotti artigianali

WATER POLLUTION

What is water pollution?

Water pollution is when waste, chemicals, or other particles cause a body of water (i.e. rivers, oceans, lakes) to become harmful to the fish and animals that need the water to survive.

Causes of Water Pollution

The causes of water pollution are many.

A lot of water pollution comes from human activity. Some human causes include sewage, pesticides and fertilizers from farms, waste water and chemicals from factories, and trash from people littering.

There are also natural causes of water pollution: volcanic eruptions, algae and animal waste.

Effects on the Environment

Water pollution can have disastrous effects on the environment.

• Pollution in the water can reach a point where there isn't enough oxygen in the water for the fish to breathe. The fish can actually suffocate!
• Sometimes pollution affects the entire food chain. Small fishes absorb pollutants, such as chemicals, into their bodies. Then bigger fishes eat the smaller fishes and get the pollutants too. Birds or other animals may eat the bigger fishes and be harmed by the pollutants.
• Sewage can also cause major problems in rivers.
• Water pollution from major events like acid rain or oil spills can completely destroy marine habitats.

Effects on Health

Water pollution can lead to atrocious effects on our health. For over 1 billion people on the planet, clean water is almost impossible to obtain. Dirty and polluted water can make them sick and is particularly hard on young children.

Types of Water Pollutants

• Sewage
• Farm animal waste
• Pesticides and herbicides
• Construction, floods, and storms
• Factories

What can you do to help?

“We inhabitants of this planet are only spectators, who witness the disintegration of this world, but what can we do to save the planet from water pollution?”

1. We should take shorter showers and we shouldn’t leave the tap open while brushing our teeth;
2. We should save water because water is valuable;
3. We shouldn’t use weed killer;
4. We shouldn’t put grease into the kitchen drain;
5. We should always pick up our trash, especially when we are at the beach, lake, or river.

GLOSSARY

WASTE=rifiuto

HARMFUL=nocivo

SEWAGE=liquami

LITTERING=disseminare rifiuti

SPILLS=perdite

FLOODS=inondazioni

VALUABLE=prezioso

WEED KILLER=erbicida

HOW CAN WE HELP?

Less water

Water is essential to life. Two thirds of our planet is covered by water. Clean water is very important for a healthy life. Water is precious. Help to save it and keep it clean! When you have a shower use less water. When you go to the toilet do not leave the water on while you wait for it to get hot.

Less power

Less rubbish

Recycling

Renewable energy

How can we best deal with rubbish and help make the world a better place?

Can you imagine your life without electricity? It would certainly be a darker, colder and duller life. NO light, NO television, NO computer, NO fridge, NO electric guitar, NO doorbell! It is very important to save electricity. But how can we do it? Well, in a variety of ways!

Pollution is killing our Earth. One of the most important things we can do to help the world is recycling. Recycling is a way to take trash and turn it into new products. All sorts of materials can be recycled. Some of the most common processes in use today involve recycling plastic, glass, metals, paper, electronics, and textiles.

Renewable energy is the energy that is collected from renewable resources, or those

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RECYCLING

Pollution is killing our Earth. One of the most important things we can do to help the world is recycling.

What is recycling?

Recycling is a way to take trash and turn it into new products.

What can be recycled?

All sorts of materials can be recycled. Some of the most common processes in use today involve recycling plastic, glass, metals, paper, electronics, and textiles.

How does recycling work?

Recycling is different for each type of material.

• The process for aluminum cans is not so complicated: the cans are first shredded and then dissolved. From there, aluminum can be used to make new cans and other aluminum objects.
• Plastic bottles are first classified into various types of chemicals. Subsequently, they are crushed into small pieces of fine plastic. Then the chips can be fused to create new plastic.
• Paper starts its recycling process by being mixed with water and other chemicals to break it down. It then gets shredded and heated up. This process eventually turns the paper into a pulp or slurry. The pulp gets strained in order to remove any glues or plastics. After that, it gets cleaned and bleached to remove any left over inks or dyes. Now the pulp is ready to be made into new paper.
• Computers and batteries are usually recycled in order to remove harmful chemicals as well as to recover some valuable materials such as gold from electronic boards.

The Recycling Loop

Recycling has got a very famous symbol which we all know very well: the recycling loop, that has three arrows. Each arrow represents a different step in the recycling process. These steps are:

1. collection of recyclable materials,
   1. processing of old materials and creation of new articles
   2. purchase of items made from recycled materials.

Benefits of Recycling

There are lots of benefits from recycling:

• landfills because recycling materials means less trash,
• resources because when we use materials again, this means we can take fewer resources from the Earth
• pollution because recycling materials produces less pollution.

How can we recycle?

We must be sure that we recycle everything we can at home and at school. We must be sure that we leave our used aluminum cans and plastic bottles in a dustbin. At home, we must be sure that we put paper items like newspapers, cereal boxes and homework pages into the recycle bin.

GLOSSARY

CANS=lattine

SHREDDED=sminuzzate

HEATED=riscaldato

PULP=polpa

SLURRY=liquame

STRAINED=filtrato

BLEACHED=decolorato

DYES=coloranti

ELECTRONIC BOARD=schede elettriche

ARROW=freccia

LANDFILLS=discariche

DUSTBIN=pattumiera

RENEWABLE ENERGY

Renewable energy is the energy that is collected from renewable resources, or those resources that are naturally reintegrated into a human time scale, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves and geothermal heat.

Much of the world relies on non-renewable energy to heat their homes, power their electronic devices and power their cars. Once these energy resources are exhausted, they will be gone forever. The development of technologies that can efficiently use renewable energy sources is fundamental for our future.

Many renewable energy sources are even better for the environment than for burning fossil fuels. They produce less pollution which will help protect the environment and provide us with cleaner air and water.

Hydroelectric energy

The most widespread clean energy is hydroelectric energy, which satisfies about 4% of the world's energy needs. Widespread in a large part of the planet, hydroelectric plants are essentially of two types:

• flowing water
• accumulation.

Flowing water systems take advantage of the natural motion of rivers and streams, while storage systems rely on the construction of large basins from which to draw on as required.

Solar energy

The sun is the first energy source that we learn to know. In addition to heating and determining the life cycle on Earth, solar energy can be converted into electricity through solar panels. There are different types of solar panels:

• Photovoltaic panels
• Solar thermal panels

Photovoltaic panels are devices composed of cells that transform solar radiation into electrical energy by exploiting the photovoltaic effect, without the use of any fuel. They are used as power generators of the plant. They are able to produce even greater amounts of energy for the usual needs of a normal family and the prices of photovoltaic panels are constantly decreasing. If we could all exploit these tools, we should no longer rely on the use of fossil fuels, a non-renewable source that damages the environment. Unlike photovoltaic panels, solar thermal panels only serve to produce hot water, but also to heat or cool the environment.

Wind energy

Among the renewable energies, that produced by the wind was among the first ever to be exploited by man. Think of the blades of the mills, capable of transforming the wind into mechanical energy capable of moving heavy machinery. As we understand it today, however, this type of energy produces mainly electricity, thanks to the insertion of the wind turbine. To function at its best, in addition to the quality of the system itself, it must be made in particularly windy areas.

Geothermal energy and biomass

Geothermal energy and that from biomass are developing a lot in recent years. Geothermal energy is derived from the heat of the Earth that heats the water present in the subsoil and lets it escape in the form of steam. In this way the plants can take advantage of the high temperatures generated to produce energy. In the second case, we talk about energy produced with organic substances through combustion processes. This is the case, for example, of food waste used to obtain thermal energy.

GLOSSARY

RELIES: fa affidamento

BURNING: combustione

FLOWING: fluente

PLANT: impianto

DECREASING: in diminuzione

MILLS: mulini

STEAM: vapore

WASTE: scarti

Sing for the climate

We only have one Earth

Sing for the Climate

A sea turtle entangled in a ghost net. Photo by Francis Perez

Even Bigger Than We Thought

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

A glossary

Slogans

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