Alice in Plantland

Text written by students of the European Club
Paitings by students of Class E - 10th Year ( Beatriz, Lucas, Leonardo Silva, Lara, Pedro, Tomás)

Many thanks to teacher Margarida Marques for the amazing collaborative partnership.

The Erasmus+ Project “Travelling to New Teaching Adventures” (2019-1-BE02-KA229-060207) has been funded with the support of the European Comission
This publication reflects the views only of the authors and thereby the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained inside.

Once upon a time there was a girl named Alice. One day, she was in class, watching a Science experiment with plant seeds and decided to keep some in her hand.

The teacher asked the students to read a text about the world's pollution and climate change.
- ALICE, you're not paying attention - the teacher warned her.
- This is very boring! - Alice complained. - It doesn't matter to anyone!
- That's not fair! These issues are very important, especially to young people like yourself! - replied the teacher.
- In our world we do not care. Those problems are very dull! - said Alice.

Suddenly, a small polar bear walked by, walking slowly without strength.
- Mommy ... Daddy ? - he asked repeatedly.
- Wait bear, what's up? - asked Alice.
- Have you seen my mommy or daddy ? - he asked as he entered a cave that Alice had never seen there before.
The girl followed the bear, but the cave grew darker and darker, until she lost sight of it.

"Beaaaar ... Beaaaar, where are you?" - Alice screamed from the top of her lungs and without getting an answer, she continued to walk until she reached the end of the cave.

- Where am I ? - she asked herself without recognizing the place where she had ended up in the cave.
Suddenly, Alice heard a voice behind her.

- You're at Plantland! Who are you and what are you doing here? - Alice turned around and saw a koala. He introduced himself. His name was Hannibal.
- I'm Alice, I came here through a cave. But, wait, did you say this place is called Plantland? There is no plant, no trees, no flowers. Everything looks like a desert, colourless, lifeless!

- Yes, I know, it was once a place full of life and colour, full of plants of all kinds you can imagine. - said Hannibal in a sad tone of voice.
- So what happened? - Alice was confused by such a strange place.

- People who live here have stopped caring about their world. They have stopped caring for the plants, and now only a few exist. This is a big problem because plants produce the oxygen needed to survive. - explained Hannibal.
- Wow, this is terrible! - said Alice.
- Yes, but there's more!
- MORE? - asked Alice.

- Yes, dear girl. Plants were just the beginning. - Hannibal continued his explanation as they walked through what used to be a forest. - People stopped worrying about pollution and did a lot of damage to the environment. For example, that polar bear that you followed here is looking for his parents. The block of ice where they lived split in two due to global warming and now they are lost to each other - concluded the koala.

- But that is so sad! How were people able to do such a thing ? - asked Alice, concerned.