As we head into the end of October, I am sure you are all hoping that we are saying goodbye to the wet season and welcoming the cool season, where we all get a little extra spring in our step. The wet season in Thailand typically lasts from May – October and sees warm air travel across Thailand from the Indian Ocean, causing hot and humid weather punctuated by heavy monsoon rains, espe-cially in the mountainous regions. This year’s monsoon has been especially long and in tense with widespread flooding in Thailand and indeed across the global south. This has seen us wading home in our flip flops and having to ensure we have an umbrella or 20 THB poncho from 7/11 at the ready. Not to men tion the traffic…
The UN Weather agency is predicting that the phe nomenon known as La Nina is poised to last through the end of the year, a mysterious “triple dip” – the first this century, set to cause the third straight year of flooding events. La Nina conditions involve large scale cooling of ocean surface temperatures and an increase in trade
winds. La Nina is the lesser know sister to El Nino which has a warming affect and can lead to drought and forest fires. Not since 2011, when Thailand experi-enced 23% more rain than usual and widespread flooding, have we seen THIS much rain.
Scientists explain that El Nino and La Nina (along with the neutral condition called ENSO) have the largest nat ural effects on our climate – at times augmenting and other times dampening the big effects of human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
Geographically Bangkok is prone to flooding, it is low lying (below sea level in some places) and it is the sole obstacle between the Central flood plains of Thailand and the Gulf of Thailand. With dams already filled to the brim and the water level of the Chao Phraya and it’s trib utaries already high, residents of the Big Mango will be holding their breath as the king tides of November arrive.
•Volunteer to deliver food and supplies to those af fected by the flooding – rice, cooking oil, canned foods, instant noodles, toilet paper, medications and snacks are the most in de-mand items.
•Donate to the NGOs working to support flood vic tims – we recommend the Thai Red Cross or the Siam Ruam Jai campaign.
•Work from home or carpool on very rainy days to avoid adding to the snarling traffic chaos.
•Buy local produce at your market or supermarket –Thai farmers are in for a tough ride as many crops have been destroyed by the recent rains.
•Use your voice and privilege to lobby for the crea tion of more dams, reservoirs and irriga-tion floodways throughout Thailand.
•Reduce your own carbon footprint to prevent cli mate change – convert to an electric car, eat more plant-based foods and reduce, reuse and recycle.
•Consider carefully where you buy and build prop erty, ensuring Mother Nature has the free-dom to fluc tuate through natural cycles as she has done for millions of years.
•Plant more trees! Greener cities absorb more water – rooftop gardens are especially good in this respect and are very popular in Europe.
•If your home or the homes of your family, friends and employees are prone to flooding, consider retrofitting so as to minimise damage and/or injuries. Some measures include rais-ing electrical outlets and sockets higher on the wall, waterproofing the building or home, ensuring that the windows and doors have weatherproof seals, and replacing MDF or plas-terboard with more durable materials.
Stay dry out there!
This year, the SEC and Primary CAT team are inviting our community to join together for the One Green Goal challenge. This year-long challenge aims to put sustainability and environmental awareness back at the centre of our thoughts, as we move beyond the pandemic. We hope that Year groups, departments, families and our wider Bangkok Patana community will set themselves One Green Goal to pursue this year. We have a list of possible suggestions, but we know that each setting and household has different needs and challenges. We want you and your family to choose a goal that is relevant to you.
People are already joining the One Green Goal challenge and we want you to be part of the challenge too! Please decide your One Green Goal for this academic year and record a short video explaining what it is. Videos should be portrait style and less than one minute long. We will share them on our social media channels. The link for uploading is here: One Green Goal Videos
Please take photos and record your progress with your One Green Goal. We will be checking in through the year to share successes, challenges, barriers and next steps. We will be using the Patana News and our other communication channels to celebrate our journeys. We know that change is never easy but by starting small and supporting each other, great things can grow. We hope that you will join with us in putting sustainability and environmental awareness back at the top of the agenda.
Have a meat free day once a week Use a fan at night not air conditioning
Turn off lights when leaving a room Beach clean
Bring trash to school to recycle Buy LED lights
Snap face masks before disposing to reduce chances of animals becoming entangled
Say no to straws
Walk more, drive less Car share to school
Pass on old school uniform via the Tiger Shop
Use metal straws Say no to plastic packaging
The first, heavy drops of rain had started to fall, while the bell rang to mark the end of the school day. Drops the size of bullets hammered at the roof, creating a joyful melody that enlightened the dull atmosphere in the class room. Excited, elated, thrilled, everyone packed their bags and skipped out of the classroom as soon as the teacher had dismissed them.
Imagine a scene where gloomy, dark clouds filled the sky, where jagged spears of lightning streaked across the darkness, where thunderous echoes howled fiercely: that was exactly what I witnessed as I stepped out of the build ing. The powerful wind forced the trees to sway from left to right uncontrollably；even I was having a war with the wind. I took out my umbrella from my bag and opened it (Inside, however I wondered if it would be any help). The more I struggled in the rain, the more I realised that there was no point in using my umbrella, since it too was having a bat tle with the downpour. Hence, I strove to reach the nearest shelter as quickly as I could, which in my case was the pub lic bus stop.
As I sat at the bus stop, I spotted a family selling grilled pork with sticky rice. Like me, they were also soaked to the skin. The thing that caught my eyes the most was a young toddler lying down at the bottom of the food cart, joyfully drinking milk, unaware of the unpleasant surroundings.
Next to the toddler was his mother, soaked from head to toe, droplets of water dripping down her hair, her eyes
filled with sorrow, unsure about what to do with the unsold food. This was her only way to earn a living for her family. Hopeless, cold, poor - what will she do to overcome this?
Afterward, I realised that the bus stop started filling up with people, all wanting to escape from the rain. How ever, they were all too distracted with their own worries, and did not bother to notice the poor lady and her food cart.
“Grilled pork with sticky rice! Only forty baht!” said the lady hoping to grab some attention. But still, everybody treated her as if she was an invisible soul.
That was it! I could not bear any longer to watch this! Furious and disappointed, I stood up and walked towards the food vendor, and offered her a hundred baht. “ Could I have two grilled pork with sticky rice please?” The lady’s eyes lit up, “ Of course! Here is your change”, she said, as she handed me the twenty baht note and the packed food. “It’s ok, you can keep the change!” I replied with a heart-warming smile.
As soon as I said that, I could see that her face brightened up just like a rainbow appearing after the rain. She was very grateful for what I had done, even though this was the least I could do to help her.
Our helpful gestures made me realise that humanity needs more kindness, and that every little thing matters.
Our Musician of the Month for October is the eclectic Kate Bush. With a career that spans from 1978, her music today is just as accessible and popular as it was back in the early 80s. The popu lar Netflix show Stranger Things featured her track “Running up that Hill’ this year, catapulting the track to number 1 in the UK charts, 37 years after it was first released.
Kate Bush is a UK singer, songwriter, pianist and dancer. Born in 1958, she started writing songs from the age of 11. Her song Wuthering Heights topped the UK charts for 4 weeks when she was just 19 years old in 1978. She was the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist to enter the album chart at number one. Across her career, she has had 25 Top 40 singles and released ten albums, the most recent in 2011.
Alexander Coke Smith IV, Secondary Environmental Sciences Leader
Thailand is in a very unique location for so many things nature-wise. There are amazing national parks replete with rainforests and coral reefs filled with thousands of species of fish and invertebrates. Another unique attribute of this amazing country is it sits in the heart of one of the world’s great avian migration flyways - the East Asian-Australian Flyway to be exact.
Now what is a flyway? We’ve all heard about the birds “flying south for the winter”. Well, that is of course a real thing. Millions and millions of birds make the long journeys from north to south and then back again every year. And in some very lucky locations, one can see this epic natural phenomenon up close and personal.
One such location is Khao Din Sor, or “Pencil Moun tain’, located in Chumphon Province a few hours south of the Bangkok. Khao Din Sor is a small mountain ac tually but it provides the perfect venue to see one of the most amazing natural events in all of Southeast Asia- the Great Raptor Migration! Last Saturday I spent several hours with friends on top of Khao Din Sor observing liter ally thousands of raptors fly overhead on their way south.
Describing how impressive this phenomenon is with mere words is very difficult and does not do it justice. Suffice to say, that last Saturday and Sunday, expert or nithologists there counted counted at least 18,000 Black Bazas alone! Black Bazas are arguably one of the most spectacular raptors in our region and it is not uncommon to see one or two here and a few more there during a birdwatching season, but to see tens of thousands in a matter of two short days is simply unreal. There were also many other species noted, such as Booted Eagles, Har riers, Jerdon’s Bazas and many many more.
Of course it is always my mission to take my weekend and after-hours nature expeditions back to the class room. This experience in particular had so many curric ular applications. For example, my ESS (Environmental Systems and Societies) students discussed migrations
and counting methods for determining moving popula tions; my Year 9 students discussed how biogeography is one of the major forms of evidence for evolution and migration patterns are often ways that species find them selves in other regions and can change over time.
I think the best example came from our Year 8 stu dents when we discussed the phenomenon known as “Kettle-formation”, where birds take advantage of the thermal convection currents that exist over these moun tains and simply ride the thermals up higher and higher over places like Khao Din Sor to capture a few moments of well earned rest during their long migration. I simply asked my kids, “How can we relate our current Topic of Heat Transfer to this Kettling Phenomenon?”, and I let the students go wild on white boards. Below is an image of their ideas. They nailed it!
As a teacher of science, I love seeing the young mind unleashed. I get great professional satisfaction seeing how my students can apply what we learn in class to real life situations that may not be so obviously connected. So much fun and so much great learning!
Coke Smith is our Environmental Science Leader and can be reached at cosm@patana.ac.th if you have any questions.
This column follows in the style of the famed BBC podcast which features a celebrity every week – here we feature our own Bangkok Patana celebrities! What eight songs, one luxury item and one book would you take with you if you were stuck on a desert island?
Today Secondary History Teacher, Eleanor Richards, is stuck on a desert island.
MS ELEANOR, IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND WHAT EIGHT PIECES OF MUSIC WOULD YOU WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU?
Town Called Malice - The Jam
Come Away With Me - Norah Jones
Nimrod - Edward Elgar
Good People - Jack Johnson
Click to listen to Ms Eleanor’s playlist
Buck Rogers - Feeder
That’s Christmas to Me - Pentatonix Feels Like Home - Sigala, Sean Paul Viva La Vida - Coldplay
PICK ONE LUXURY ITEM YOU WOULD WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU. THIS ITEM MUST BE INANIMATE AND OF NO USE IN ESCAPING THE ISLAND OR ALLOWING COMMUNICATION FROM OUTSIDE.
Unlimited Coke Zero
WHICH ONE BOOK WOULD YOU WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU?
The full omnibus edition of Douglas Adams’ five Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novels Catch the real Desert Island Discs on BBC. What are you listening to? Have a list of your own? Let us know! Contact STML with your favourites.
Sendit is an add-on to Snapchat, not a standalone app: it requires users to have an active Snapchat account, which they then connect to Sendit. It’s important that trusted adults realise, therefore, that any risks associated with Snapchat also affect children using Sendit. Within the app, people play question games like ‘Truth or Dare’ and ‘Never Have I Ever’: us ers select a question to share on their Snapchat story for their friends to re ply to. All responses are anonymous, although – for paying subscribers –Sendit reveals hints about who sent which messages.
In the guide, you’ll find tips on a num ber of potential risks such as bullying, harassment and grooming.
We hope you can join us at the next PTG Tech Tips event on 1st Novem ber – sign up here
Have a great weekend.
Brian Taylor
Assistant Principal, Campus Curriculum Technology Integration
