Day 3. Our planet: Ecology Matters, and History, too!

We have a camp logo! This camp logo for 2023 was voted the best among the six groups that drafted and submitted possible logos. What do you think of it?

Rise and shine! That’s what we did to the tune of a gentler-than-yesterday guitar alarm clock. Morning exercise included stretching and a round of Ninja followed by a hearty breakfast and preparation for our theme of the day: “Ecology Matters! And History, Too!”

We added leaves written with questions about the theme to our Tree of Knowledge and noted that a few unanswered questions about democracy remained on the tree from yesterday, so we addressed those questions and got some clarification about various types of democracies.

We learned that UNESCO World Heritage Sites are examples of the international community working together to preserve important places for us and future generations. We viewed photographs of a few dozen of them such as the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, and Easter Island, and reviewed their locations. 

As another introduction to the importance of preserving our environment, we listened to, but initially did not watch, a video, and drew pictures of what we thought might be happening in the video portion. Then we watched the video images and saw that it depicted a formerly pristine world being destroyed over time by technology, greed, and depletion of resources. To reinforce the importance of recycling and learn correct ways to recycle, we formed relay teams and headed out to the tennis courts. Each team started with a bag of more than 30 items and we were tasked to recycle those items into the correct recycle category, such as paper, pharmaceutical, plastic, or e-waste. One lesson we learned is that recycling rules and processes differ by country and even by city, and that to recycle effectively, we need to learn the process for recycling in our own communities. Refuse, reduce, reuse, and recycle are important values and everyday practices. 

Moving onto the theme of history informing our current views, we had a lesson that reminded us we should not always believe what we see because there might be more to the picture. The tutors projected an image that we guessed included a barbed wire fence and some barn-like buildings, perhaps, we assumed, on a farm or in a Nazi concentration camp or a Soviet work camp. As more of the image was revealed and the story told, we learned that, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, many Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps in the western United States because of suspicions that they might be aiding Japan. From that exercise, we realized that before we form opinions, we need to carefully examine what we are seeing and ask questions. And, as we learn more, we need to consider changing our opinions or perspectives.

What does a country do when many of its monuments and statues no longer represent its democratic values and were erected by occupiers? In the case of Lithuania, they move them to a large park where they stand as a solemn collection that reflects the negative contents of the Soviet ideology and its influence on the values of the nations. Our group traveled by bus to Gruto Parkas in southern Lithuania to walk through the park to see the statues of Lenin and other Soviet communist leaders as well as examples of printed propaganda. Informally, some of the teachers from Poland and Lithuania talked to students about their own childhoods under Soviet occupation when they were required to strictly conform with regulations regarding clothing, toys, food, friends, and more. They remembered coupons that allowed their families to buy limited amounts of toilet paper, their mothers standing in long queues to purchase only seasonal food, and the joy of receiving an orange at Christmas. They also remember not being allowed to go to church, the fear that a neighbor or friend might suspect them of an infringement and turn in their family to the government authorities, and the strict rules of school uniforms, prohibition of wearing jewelry, and absolute conformity and discipline as dictated by the communist government. They lived in fear, not freedom. After the park, we had some free time to visit a nearby town, Druskininkai, and to take photos as part of a group competition to illustrate one of the many values of a democracy.  

After dinner, Redas Zalieckas, a young alumnus fellow of the Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Fellowship program described his life-changing month at Purdue University and in an American host family in Indiana, USA. The US State Department program is free, open to applications from 16 to 18-year-olds, includes time in Washington, DC, and classes at Purdue that focus on US history, culture, international relations, and more. The fellowship is awarded to 45 teenagers from Europe and ten American teenagers in a program that aims to reinforce the transatlantic relationships. You can learn more at https://exchanges.state.gov/us/program/benjamin-franklin-summer-institutes. Many of our camp delegates are eager to learn more and apply! 

After dinner, groups gave presentations about the photos they had taken in Druskininkai to illustrate a democratic value. The winning group chose “diversity” as their value and illustrated it by taking a photo of a racially diverse family they met in town. 

We had an hour of free time and are on our way to sleep now!