When our Russian friends visited us in April, we set up an agenda that
focused on the many environmental issues facing New York City: sewage
treatment, solid waste disposal, air quality, and more. They also got
to experience Kennedy High School, working in the Enchated Garden, and
visiting with various Global Studies classes, where they answered questions
from students about life in Russian today. We also visited many great
New York City and Washington DC landmarks: the statue of Liberty, Ellis
Island, the Twin Towers, the museum of Natural History, the New York
Botanical Gardens, Wave Hill, the landfill out at Staten Island, the
Liberty Science Center, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Vietnam Veteran's
Memorial, to name some of the highlights. The Russian students stayed
at the homes of our Kennedy hosts, and on a few occasions got to sample
the best pernil in the Bronx, thanks to the Santiago family!
The highlight of their visit was to Aberdeen, Maryland. We traveled
with Jennifer Adibi and Alison Bragg of Ecobridge, and met with representatives
of a group monitoring the disposal methods being used by the Aberdeen
Proving Grounds, which for years has tested all kinds of weapons. In
an interview with a local tv station, we discussed how two seemingly
disparate communities, Aberdeen and Gorny, had to face up to the problem
of how huge amounts of toxins, like dioxin, which was contained in these
weapons, could potentially wind up in their water supplies.
Our Russian guests included Sabina Mineeva, chaperone, and the following
students: Polina Savina, Nadezhda Chernikova, Olga Grigoreva, Yuri Alferov,
Yulia Shchanitsina, Olga Glakhteeva, and Irina Lapshova.
It
is possible to learn more about their visit to us, and to view more
photos, thanks to a visit made by the students to Mr. Feld's computer
class at Kennedy.
