Aurélien is a biologist teacher at the University of Tours. He studies geosciences and environmental science.

His presentation dealt with fossil fuels from their origins to their extraction and their exploitation. He made us aware of the impact of coal mining and oil digging on the environment.

Bituminous sands, Alberta, Canada

He reminded us of the share of responsibility of fossil fuel consumption on greenhouse gas emission and global warming.

His slideshow included pictures of countries he had travelled through, where plastic pollution was tremendous and where their inhabitants were still unaware of its consequences.

A street in Lima, Peru

We know the impact of plastic pollution on our environment and the danger for our health and that of the future generations. That’s why we have to protect our environment.

Besides, the resources of oil are diminishing and with the current pace of consumption, there will be no more crude oil in about fifty years. As a consequence, it is high time some solutions were found to replace oil in plastic products and as a source of energy.

Then Aurélien was explained the activities carried out by the members of the scientific workshop. He was very interested in the studies and the work we had performed to protect our environment.

We will be very happy to welcome him again by the end of the school year.

Since the beginning of September, our school has pioneered a scientific workshop in English.

We are a group of 22 students from seconde form very interested in protecting our environment. Obviously, we like English too!

To begin with, we first studied the impact of plastic on nature. We observed that a lot of plastic wastes were dropped anywhere on the school grounds. That’s why we decided to go plastic plogging in our school. Plastic plogging is an activity mixing jogging and picking up waste (from the Swedish verb: Plocka upp (pick up)). Our plogging experience took place September, 22^nd. We had divided the area into 7 parts and our group into 7 teams. We picked up a lot of wastes such as cigarette ends, tissues, pieces of aluminium, soda cans, but mainly pieces of plastic, plastic cups or candy plastic wrapping.

Our plastic plogging was an environmentally responsible action. So doing, we have felt eco citizens and were happy to protect our planet.

Examples of wastes picked up

Tuesday, September 29th, we attended a lecture about plastic wastes. Valentine Pilot, the lecturer, explained the impact of plastic wastes on our environment and how recycling can help to save the planet!

Wastes are collected by garbage trucks and brought to the plastic sorting centre. From the moment wastes arrive there, they are no longer identified as waste but as material. Sorting out these materials is a long and accurate process because it is important that the different kinds of plastics should not be mixed. Humans check and correct a sophisticated sorting process performed by machines. Finally, materials are compacted and sent to factories to be recycled into other objects such as bottles or cars!

Pour déterminer la valeur de l'accélération de la pesanteur ou "acceleration due to gravity", les élèves de section européenne physique ont utilisé plusieurs méthodes.

En utilisant la chute libre, ils ont obtenu g=9,9 m.s^-2 et en utilisant les oscillations d'un pendule simple, g=9,6 m.s^-2. Des valeurs proches de 9,81 m.s^-2, la valeur calculée en assimilant le poids d'un corps à la force d'attraction gravitationnelle subie par ce corps à la surface de la Terre.

Mesure de la durée de chute libre d'une bille