Have you ever wondered what will happen to our water when we are old and frail, when we can’t live up to the expectations that life demands from us?

Or do you wonder about our aquatic water life and what they have to go through each and every day of their lives?

Imagine yourself in that position. Say you’re swimming in the water, minding your business, when all of a sudden you look up. You see a bunch of plastic fall into the water, and now your head is in a plastic bottle in agonizing pain. Isn’t it cruel? WATER POLLUTION. There, I said it.

Water pollution is killing our seas and killing us slowly, but no one seems to care. I mean it, we people are so busy all the time running around on errands, jobs, school, like who really has time to stop for anything? No one.

Consider slowing down and look around you. Like, what do you see? Do you see a functional society where everything is okay or do you see water pollution killing our environment, our animals… Us?

Studies show that “Exposure to microplastic has been linked to lung and colon cancer in a major scientific review led by a Sydney expert who screened 3,000 studies to draw conclusions into the health effects of the tiny, ubiquitous pollutants.” Microplastics are not caused naturally; they happen when plastics break down into even smaller pieces, posing even more life-threatening issues because they can harm the body more forcefully which causes lots of damage and could possibly be life threatening.

Do you see what water pollution does to the body? Not only should we be concerned, we should try to help to change the world because not only are we in charge of our own health, we are responsible for others like our friends, family and even our children.

So, with this knowledge let’s strive for better water, a better world and a newfound peace that together we can make a big change to our world.

Carly Barrett
VUMS Student

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Students at Vergennes Union Middle School finished a civics unit by writing open letters. The driving question was: What makes democracy work? To create this final project, teachers and students used the New York Times open letter contest framework. Students could choose any topic they felt passionate about. The letters are being published in several different venues: in our school newsletter, on Front Porch Forum, in The Addison Independent, and on school bulletin boards. Two students submitted their letters to the NYT contest! Our students did a wonderful job writing these letters, and we hope you enjoy reading the ones that appear here. We expect these students will continue to use their voices to highlight issues they care about!

Libby Payeur and Nan Guilmette
VUMS Humanities Teachers