Week 4 of our Climate Action Project consisted of preparation for and taking part in Skype Calls with schools in New Jersey and Dubai. We prepared by using our research over the previous three weeks of the project to collate topics to discuss with our partner schools.

Notes from the students of the Senior Room:

On Tuesday 24th October we Skyped New Jersey and the class of Michael Dunlea. Michael teaches seven and eight year olds in Tabernacle Elementary School in New Jersey. The students are learning Spanish. New Jersey was badly affected by Hurricane Sandy and four thousand houses were destroyed. In New Jersey after Sandy and because of the flood risk to houses people have to raise their houses by fifteen feet or else they won't get insured. The elderly and disabled people if they have a house like this they use an elevator to get up and down it costs lots of money to make the house higher and a lot to install the elevator.
They are studying Climate Change like our school. The school asked us some questions about what we are doing with the climate change project. After that we asked them some questions and what they do in their school. Their school is one of the best schools in their town because they are mindful of their water waste and reducing the waste of plastic.
It was 2:19pm in Clontuskert and 9:19am in New Jersey when we spoke to Mr. Dunlea's Class. That is a five hour time difference.
START is Stafford Teachers and Residents Together and this group was founded by Mr. Dunlea in response to the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. 

On Wednesday 25th October we skyped into GEMS School in Dubai with Mrs. Shafaque Riaz. GEMS is also a Microsoft Showcase School. Professor Anne Dolan from Mary Immaculate College in Limerick joined us for the call and was very impressed with the work of the students who had prepared so well for the call.

Notes from the students of the Senior Room:

People in Dubai speak Arabic.  Many of the parents work in the airport which is near GEMS School. They have more they four thousand pupils in their school. They have one hundred and five different nationalities. During our call to Dubai it was 37 degrees. They have a lot of traffic every day in Dubai.
When the students were researching for the Climate Action Project they found that they have had more sandstorms this summer and they predict they are going to have more rain in winter.
They have a Minster for Climate Change in Dubai like we do in Ireland.
They reuse water from the buses after they wash them.
School starts at 7:30 in the morning and ends at 4 o 'clock. There are testing flying cars and self - driving cars in Dubai. They are trying to put the right thing into the right bins. Every month they go to the beach to clean it.

The children were not in the classroom at the time so we did not get to meet them.
Mrs. Riaz showed us some photos of Dubai and she asked us questions about Ireland. We told her about Hurricane Ophelia and what we have been doing in Clontuskert to help stop climate change.
We told her about the bins and about the green school and what we do. There national sport is football.
We spoke to Mrs. Riaz for forty minutes.