About the project

DemoCrazy is a part of the Comenius project which focuses on democracy and enviromental problems. There are four countries working together on the DemoCrazy project; England, Spain, Turkey and Norway. We are making a web-based magazine where students focus on problems and opportunities in their

own community.

Text: Ove Sæverud Hogneland

It is the year of 2011. It is more than a year since the earthquake in Haiti, and floods in Pakistan and Australia have just used up their sending period on the daily news. Hopefully, it is the year of

people finally realizing the global warming.

In Norway, most of us think it has become colder. Snow is drifting down, and the temperature is constantly reaching new records. Because of this, many of us think that the global warming is just something the scientists, desperate of media attention, have come up with. After seeing thousands of people waiting for help on their roofs in Pakistan, we just twitch our eyebrow, and keep on living the same way we always have. And that is where we need to change. The floods all over the world are not something the media has cooked up. And neither is the global warming. The temperature is increasing, and it is often the people

who suffer from before, who will suffer from this as well.

When the temperature increases, also the sea level will increase. Therefore, by reducing our CO2 emissions, we can

make the temperature more normal, and the sea level as well.

There are many ways of reducing our CO2 emissions, and both private persons and companies will have to attend in doing it. For example, everyone should drive less. The petrol we use for vehicles is one of the largest causes to private persons high emissions. If everyone drove less, or at least used public transportation when they went out of their house, the CO2

emissions would have been much lower.

Also the companies that have large emissions should have start-ed reducing this. Today, Kårstø for instance, a Norwegian gas company, is polluting a lot. Actually, Kårstø pollutes as much in a year as all the vehicles in Norway does in a year. That is an

extremely high pollution. Some years ago, the government decided that Kårstø should install a sewage treatment plant.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet.

Another way of reducing ones CO2 emissions is by using less electrical power. In Norway the temperatures are quite low, and because of that, people use a lot of electrical power. This is also an area where we could reduce the pollution. For instance, we could shower shorter and use thicker clothes when we are inside, so that we could use less power on heating houses. Also, a mis-take that many people do, we could turn the lights off, when we are not in a room. A lot of people do think that the lights in cor-ridors and the kitchen and so on, should be on. Of course, that is in case we should need something from the kitchen for instance, and we just do not have the energy to push the light button when we walk in and out of the room. It is not necessary to keep the

lights on all day long!

Today, for people who are building a new house, there are genius solutions called “smart houses”. In this way, the house controls the lights and temperature in the different rooms itself, so that the use of electrical power will be as low as possible. Without sav-ing the environment from unnecessary emissions, you also save

money.

I, myself, am not a perfect person who saves the environment from all the pollution. I must admit, as a Norwegian I am, that only taking the bus, and not drive myself, would almost be im-possible. Therefore, it is important to reduce the CO2 emissions slowly. Almost none manage to stop driving themselves, if that is what they have done all their life. To shower shorter, or reducing the inside temperature in addition to wear thicker clothes, can also be hard. Therefore, take it slowly, but do not use that as an

excuse for not doing anything.

The lives of millions of people are in our hands. It is up to you to do something about it!

Global WarmingPeople all over the world are starting to realize the fact of a global warming. The poorest people, in the poorest countries, are the ones who feel it the most. It is up to the rich, western countries to do some-

thing about it. What can you do?

Text: Hanne Torgersen

We work to fight climate changes and stop the loss of the diversity of nature. This is a huge task and goal, but it’s our century’s biggest challenge and it’s necessary for out world.

Norway has built it’s welfare on dirty and polluting oil- and gas industry through the last forty years. Therefore we stand responsible for huge amounts of CO2, and we need to use our technology and welfare to build a renewable country and cut our CO2-gases. The climate changes are a global crisis. The richest countries stand responsible for most of the emissions of CO2, but climate changes will hit the poor countries like Bangladesh hardest. Nature and Youth use the democracy to reach through with our cases and demands. We talk to politicians and people on the streets both directly

and through media.

To reach through with a case, we have to get people with us for or against the case. In 2009, the «Folk action» for an oil free Lofoten, Vesterålen and Senja, was started. The vulnerable and valuable areas in Lofoten, Vesterålen and Senja in the north of Norway contains oil, and the powerful Norwegian oil industry wants it. This was a huge case during the national election the same year, and it has been Nature

and Youth’s main case through several years.

March 11th 2011, we won the case. The government, which contains three different parties, agreed not to start an opening process during this period (2009-2013). Two of them are against oil- and gas activities in the area, while the last and largest party is split in the case. Therefore there has been a huge insecurity whether we’d win or loose, even though

Young Friends ofthe Earth Norway

Nature and Youth (Young Friends of the Earth Norway) is the largest environmental organization for youth in Norway. There are over 7000 members and over 80 local active groups who work on local environmental

problems all over the country.

all reports and experts have recommended highly that the oil industry stay out of the area. We have all the facts and experts on our side, while the oil industry has got the money. Lofoten, Vesterålen and Senja has built itself on fishing industry, and the last big “torskebeastand” in the world spawns there. Oil and fish does not go hand in hand, but still someone puts the short lasting fossil industry ahead of sustainable fishing industry and the diversity of nature and species. The battle will come up again, and then we will stand even stronger after this huge part-victory. This victory shows us that working against the most powerful industry in our country, and maybe even in the whole world, works. They are powerful, rich and mighty, while we’re worried

about our future.

Text: Karen Pang, Natalie Foster, Burak Tora, Ove Hogneland, Ivan Busto

- Human consumption- Personal hygiene

- Toilet breaks- Transport- Recycling

. Mobile phone- News

- Physical activities

From England, the human consumption section consists mainly of drinking water and drinking tea and soft drink. In Turkey, they drank approximately 84.5 litres of water from the results of eight people within a week. They drank a lot more water than England, this could be because the weather is much hotter then England and the water is safer from a bottle as the tap water is contaminated. In Spain, they drank approximately 157 litres of water, as in Spain it’s a much a

hot country, prevent dehydration they must drink a lot.

The water was also used for washing hands a lot and brush-ing teeth as well as showering. The water in Turkey was used frequently for gardening and this required large amount of water. In England, the results show that from four people, the toilet was flushed 180 times in a week, this portraying that there is a lot of water that was used. The Spanish stu-

dents used 2007 litres of water for personal hygiene.

For the transport section, the eight Turkish students walked for 25 hours and 50 minutes in a week. Also, they travelled

for 3 hours on the bus. In England, the students walked for 16 hours and 45 minutes and travelled in a car for 37 minutes in a week. The Spanish results show that they walked for 10

hours and 50 minutes.

Recycling is very important to the environment and is a top-ic for the DemoCrazy project. Over a period of a week, the English students recycled 21 sheets of paper and 12 bottles. We found that that Turkey recycle a lot more than England as they recycled: 11 sheets of paper, 18 bottles, 5 batteries and one glass, this shows they recycle at a much wider range of materials. The only materials that were recycled in Spain

were paper and plastic over the entire week.

Mobiles are used everyday for a number of reasons such as communication, internet and others and are very popu-lar world wide. In England, from the four students 20 calls were sent in a week and 42 calls were received. There were 1492 texts that were sent to people and 1520 texts that were received. From the results from Turkey, there were 302 calls that were received or sent, and as sms texts are more popu-lar in Turkey especially with young students, there was a large amount of texts that were sent and received- 19,359. and spend 27 hours and 25 minutes on the internet. The calls that were sent and received in Spain were 29 and there were 39 texts that were sent and received. They also used their phones for photos and took 59 photos using their mobile

phones. They also used their phones for music purposes.

Nowadays, the news can be viewed and heard from many types of media, such as: television, radio, newspapers, and on the internet. In England, for watching the news on the tel-evision, the students spent 2 hours and a few minutes, and 1 hour an 40 minutes listening to the news on the radio. There

Eco diaryWe were asked to complete an eco-diary within a week, to find out how much water we use every day and how we use it. All of the groups were asked to fill in a table for:

Text: Karen Pang, Natalie Foster, Burak Tora, Ove Hogneland, Ivan Busto

were only 7 minutes spent looking at the newspaper and 1 hour and 5 minutes on the news on the internet. The Turkish students spent 44 hours and 40 minutes on the television, 8 hours listening to the radio, 4 hours and 5 minutes with newspapers and 37 hours on the internet. Therefore, the re-sults are the evident that Turkey listen and view the news more than England. In Spain, they watched the news for 8

hours and 30 minutes and the internet for 33 hours.

The physical activities that took place in England over the week were walking which was for 17 hours and football for an hour and a half, also bowling which people did this for 4 hours and a half. There were a wider range of physical activ-ities that occurred in Turkey-guitar for 3 hours, walking for 17 hours, football for an hour and a half, bowling for 4 hours and 30 minutes, dancing for 3 hours. Also, volleyball was played for 30 minutes. The Spanish students spent 3 hours

dancing through the week that was monitored.

The Norway students have completed an eco-diary; however it was not used in provirus issues, so the results were not

recorded so could not be entered.

Overall, this activity has proved that water, is a very impor-tant item in life for everyone and is used for many purposes, and people use water for different purposes due to the coun-

try environmental needs.

The sources of the river start in Karabük and pour itself into the Black Sea. There is an estuary at the place the river pours into the sea. Thanks to this characteristic, it is the only river that is used for river transportation in Turkey. The river

is used for transportation, fishing and tourism, too.

There are often floods as there is not a regular stream in the rivers. There was a very big flood in Bartın in 1998 that hadn’t been seen for a long time. All the city was submerged to 12 metres above the settlement. The most important rea-sons of this situation; the water capacity of the brooks de-creases as a result of there is no interference to the forests in the basins of the brooks that pass through Bartın to the sea, and there is no work in the river courses. The heavy rain before the flood forced the river bed the narrow water course coused the biggest flood of the century in the city. In order to prevent the repetition of the future floods, the government

started a dam project in the Kirazlıköprü area.

There is a pollution in the basin that Bartın river and its branches created resulted by human settlement and activi-ties. It was seen on the waste water analysis that some pa-rameters in the pollution amount of the cement and lime wastes that was thrown by the factories that was constructed by the river are above 0 amount. The canalization water poured directly to the river, the animal wastes mixed to the water with rains in the rural parts cause the creation of “the coliform bacterias”. Bartın river and basin are polluted by the wastes of human activities, industrial wastes and wrong

land use and the water quality decreases.

Bartin river- water and environment

Turkey

It is a result of these careless use of water, Bartın and its beaches are taken off from the beaches that are rewarded with blue flags after evaluated by the Turkish Environment

Education Foundation.

Text: Ove Sæverud Hogneland

Travelling green?

Every morning, on week days from Monday to Friday, Erlend (17), a male student in first grade at Vardafjell Upper secondary school takes his bicycle and cycles the two kilometres down to the school. He is one of the ten percent who uses this way to get to school. Only about one out of four either walks or cycles to school among the pupils at

Vardafjell. The rest use petrol in order to get there.

Erlend practises football three times a week. Some might claim that the reason for his choice lies right there. Does the football give him the energy he needs to cycle to school? Or is it just a coincidence that he both does physical activities

and cycles to school?

If we look at the number of pupils doing physical activities in their spare time, we can see that more than 80 percent of the asked pupils do it. That is a huge contrast to the 25

percent who walk or cycle to school.

The reason why so many pupils use ways of getting to school that are not environmental friendly, might be that they see the training as a compensation of walking or cycling to school. And of course - those who drive to school on their own, a total of about 35 % of the asked, might think it is easier to drive on their own, than using the good ways of getting there. Another fact about getting to school, is that the public transport in Haugesund is terrible. One can never trust the buses coming on the right time, and it might also be faster to

drive on your own, than using public transportation.

Do you think students in Haugesund are environ-mentally friendly? Well, we have asked students at Vardafjell Upper Secondary School about how they get to school and how they exercise. The question-naire shows very many different attitudes among

the students. When we compare walking or cycling to school with taking the bus, many also travel with the bus because of distances. At Vardafjell Upper Secondary School, many might live more than ten kilometres away. Walking or cycling is then almost impossible, unless you are sporty beyond the normal.

Personally, I think that physical activities and being environmental friendly do not have anything in common. I rather think it has to do with attitudes and distances. Some pupils are allowed by their parents to drive to school, and some might not be in that position. Someone might not even afford to drive, and some might just not want to. The reasons are probably on an individual level, and I think the attitudes need to be changed, if there are going to be any progress in the environmental friendly direction. It is up to each pupil to

do something about it.

Norway

Text: Harald Larssen Lønning

The student councilNorway

The student council was established in 1980 and has been an important part of the school system at Vardafjell Upper Secondary School. The student council is a big group of 42 students and one teacher. The students are democratically voted for among peers from 21 classes at the beginning of

every academic school year.

Every Tuesday all 21 students are ready for their weekly meeting. The student council has recently moved into their brand new meeting room. One teacher, named Brit Stensland appointed as contact teacher, is present as well. The students look eager and are ready to discuss issues concerning their

fellow students.

Brit checks attendance and then… they are ready. Marte Lund Johanssen, the elected leader of the student council, starts the meeting and talks about the day’s agenda. The student council is about to make some big decisions today, so the secretary carefully writes down every single

move.

The discussion is on. Different perspectives and opinions are voiced and the students try to convince each other. A boy raises his hand and the room is quiet before Marte lets him

speak.

“We cannot make a final decision today. We are so far from agreeing. I recommend the student council to take this issue

to the school’s Environment Committee.”

The other students seem to agree and the secretary writes it down in the minutes.

Marte ticks off the first issue on the agenda and continues to the next. “A student needs to attend the National Student Or-ganisation next week. Some important issues are to be raised at this meeting. NSO have a meeting with the government in

order to make a final decision on the issues. Some of the students raise their hands and the student coun-cil decides together that Marte and two of the students are to

attend this meeting.

Marte looks at the time. The meeting has lasted for 28 min-utes and it is time to move to the last issue on the agenda:

“…reports on work done by the library committee, environ-ment committee, NSO and other committees the Student

council is involved in.“

The secretary writes her minutes and all 21 students leave the room and disappear into the crowd of students…

The student councilEngland

In our school we believe in the importance of building a liaison between teacher and student; as the young generation of today we recognize the significance of people in a community having a say on the decisions taken. The student council gives students the opportunity to cooper-ate with each other and understand how to work in a team. We have organized our Student Council using ideas of basic democracy i.e. team work, communication and fairness and have included working with people of different backgrounds with different ideas. We want to come to the best solution for problems which are evident around the world and work hard to make a difference and improve the perspective future for

our school.

We have recently been focusing on the environment and conservation of energy. Our goal is to raise awareness amongst the college so that the students will understand the effect our current actions may have on the future. Together we have been taking part in meetings to try and develop different ideas on how to improve the efficiency of our school, for example, one of the ideas that we have had is to create a video, another being to write songs or poetry and

to make posters.

The aim of the posters is to make people aware of the facts about energy and material waste, as this is a very effective method into initiating a change in attitudes and behaviour towards the cause. Designing the posters was relatively easy, with basic images, information and theme related colours we managed to combine our ideas to create a successful final

piece.

The video was planned as a form of communication; an interactive way to get the messages across to the students of our school. We planned to interview random pupils to see how they felt about the attempts our school have made to conserve energy and recycle, then ask them how we could improve our methods. When we actually made the video, the feedback we received was incredibly similar, depicting that we shared the same views. For example, a vast majority of the students explained how they felt that we should recycle more materials other than paper; perhaps ensuring

there were more recycling bins.

Additionally, we started to write a song which covered these issues. Within the lyrics we have included the main points that we felt were most important in modern day society, and have worked with the aim of raising awareness in our school. Composing the lyrics was very simple; however, it was fairly difficult to get them to flow so that the song could be relatable. We have composed an original sound for the lyrics and we are confident that message will be clearly put across. Hopefully the lengths we have gone to, to make a change will encourage people to help make recycling an

everyday occurrence.

Self evaluationSelf evaluation

The project named “DEMOCRAZY” that our school has at-tended contributes us a lot. Our view point to life has one

more dimension thanks to it.

I met different cultures, civilizations and their different peo-ple when I went out of the border of my country. I fell pas-sionately in love with the cities that seem very different at first. We mingled with the people from three different coun-tries during the co operative studies, chats, and the meals we had together. We came closer to each other sincerely with the synergy feeling. Then, we started to passionately dis-cover the city in whose borders we were. We passed through the streets smelling history, tasted the traditional foods, and learned to say “hello” in Spanish. We had realized one more thing, too. We realized that the things we had seen in this city were more than the things we had seen so far. We had started to understand the people in a different way; we had

started to understand the life in a different way, too.

Lastly, “DEMOCRAZY” project made us look at life from a different angle and improve us. How happy to us that we participated in a project like ours. I feel myself so lucky that I am one of those that participate the activities in the project.

In my school we have been working for two years in democ-racy and environmental issues. In most of the subjects we work in those issues with presentations, games, activities, hand crafts… In the student council, the last year we got a lot of money with donations from students to tsunamis, third world people… The week before coming to Turkey we were in the ``Day of sustainability`` and we worked with pictures and a gymkhana to know more of this issue. We had questions and we did a competition: the first group who completed all the questions won money for school material.

The meeting in Spain was very interesting, I had never been in one of those meetings before and I enjoyed it. We were in groups with people from different countries and it was nice, because all of us contributed with some ideas to make the

full document.

To sum up, I would like to say that participating in this project is very useful because we learn how to help the environment and we become aware about this. We also get to know differ-

ent cultures and different people, and different is nice.

TurkeySpain

Özlem KOŞARRaúl VELASCO

Water Saving

Advice and studies - Although it may seem an exaggerated, a report has been made by the company shows that fittings could save 48% of water consumed for domestic use only with more technology. With some tips we can improve the

environment.

- According to studies Spain is a country that wastes water

- Consume 171 liters of water daily for person and day, mean, 121 liters of the figure the World Health Organization set as

the minimum amount to cover basic needs.

- According to the analysis of a company of fittings a family of four, if you were using technology to recycle water for

domestic use, could save up to 90,000 liters for year.

- Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth, you only need to open it to rinse the beginning and end. You can save up to

10 liters.

- Fix with urgent faults faucets and pipes. A dripping tap loses 30 litres daily.

- Pull the toilet only when necessary and not using it as trash.

Spain