Hello to all participants,

We are very excited to be participating in this global investigation into environmental issues.  We hope to learn so much from other teenagers around the world.

We are a mix of grade 7 and 8 students, with an average age of 13.  There are 32 students in our class, but we are very lucky to have two teachers in the classroom and 1 student teacher from time to time. 

Our classroom is a paperless, technology based classroom.  Everyone has a laptop and/or iPods to use during all our classes.  The teacher uses a Smartboard and laptop to present all our lessons.  A lot of our lessons involve videos, pictures and ebooks.  It is very cool!

Our school, Redstone Public School, is located in Richmond Hill, Ontario, about 20 minutes north of Toronto. Our school population is approximately 525 students, with an age range from 4 to 14 years old.  We go to school from Monday to Friday, from 9:10am to 3:30pm.  We are a very multicultural community including Persian, Korean, European, Chinese, Russian, Canadian and Vietnamese.  

We don’t have to wear uniforms and can express our individuality through our clothing choices.  Sports are a big part of school life and we have competitive teams in volleyball, basketball and soccer.

Redstone Public School follows good character traits and awards students for courage, honesty and respect; to name a few.  We are also a ‘green’ school or eco-friendly, which means we turn off the lights when a room is not in use and minimize the garbage we throw away by recycling.  We also try to reduce the amount of paper  we use in the school.  Classrooms can win an award for having the least amount of garbage each month.

We are members of our classroom community, school community and of course our country identity.  Living in Canada means that we experience four seasons, although most people believe we live in snow all the time.  We do not live in igloos!  In the summer it gets hot!

Canada is a huge country by size!  We are approximately 270 times bigger than the Netherlands.  Being that big has pros and cons.  It takes 7 days to drive across Canada by car and each province has different issues and concerns.  However, Canada produces many famous people, like Justin Bieber and Drake. 

As a last thought, not all Canadians end their sentences with eh, but it does happen more often than not, eh!

We look forward to working with you on this global project.

Mr. Gerson / Mrs. Ratti’s Grade 7/8 Class.

The Teachers:

Hello,  I am Stephanie Ratti.  I have been teaching for 18 years.  I am currently in a team teaching project in a split 7/8 classroom.  Most of my years have been spent teaching students from grade 6-8.  I also was a school librarian for 8 years.  I am very excited about using our technology classroom to reach out to other students around the world and discuss common concerns about the Earth's health. 

Hi there, my name is Bryan Gerson.  I have been teaching for 10 years.  This year I am team teaching in the technology grade 7/8 classroom but I have mainly been teaching grades 4-7.  I am very excited to be part of this project and learning from the different classrooms around the world.