This year we can really talk about a new beginning. The school is full of life. Everyone is back full time with the joys and sorrows this implies. Many students have experienced their first school party (we have had lockdowns and restrictions for almost two school years) – and 1.100 students from the different departments across Aarhus Gymnasium were gathered for the joint Sports Day on September 17th.

 

Now we are entering the fall. The immediate joy of being back, the happiness of being able to socialize again, is complemented by a rainy day here and there; the IB2 students face the exam realities - and sometimes some students romanticize the “good old” online schooldays.

 

If you are close to an IB2 student, remember to give them an extra hug sometimes and invite them to a cup of hot chocolate. You see, they have exams during the whole school year. In every subject, they must hand in an IA (Internal Assessment) that accounts for 20-30% of the final exam grade. Moreover, they will not be allowed to sit the written exams if they haven't handed in the IAs according to the deadlines. Also, they have oral exams recorded in the course of the school year, so that will mean a lot of hard work.

 

Some students realize this too late, and that is why we highlight the IAs again and again. I am honestly not a fan of teaching to the test, and I believe that learning and developing is the purpose of going to school, not just passing tests. However, it is my job to make sure that all the assignments are collected and forwarded to the IBO for correction, therefore some students find me controlling and annoying, but I hope that someday they will realize that I did it for their own good. 

 

Every single student is unique, and I am proud of our students - they actually do very well. Sometimes I forget to tell them that. We have so many committed students engaged in their school and their society. I am very much impressed by these young gifted, and caring young people.

 

Kind regards,

Malene Sørensen

We have had a great start to the new school year, and the pre-IB students have been incredibly welcoming and open to all the new experiences that they have had together be it the IB Dinner, the intro trip to Sletten or the recent PE Day. We have had new students join the pre-IB several times since the start of the school year and as a cohort they have continually been welcoming to all newcomers. Well done you guys!

 

Now, the students are now over their initial butterflies and enjoying a sense of normalcy with homework, assignments, new friends and parties. They have settled into a new routine and are adapting to a new school with new rules and practices, and I look forward to seeing how they manage here in the fall when they are faced with their first evaluations in the form of the General Science test, the General Linguistics test, both in November, and the first term grades coming out in December. But more on that next time 😉

 

Best wishes,

Maria Friis Lindinger  

 

 

 

My expectations – by Bianca
I was so excited at the thought of starting high school. A new chapter in my life was about to begin, and between us, I didn't feel ready at all. My only constant thought was to look beautiful and make lots of friends, and in fact that's what happened, and that's why I'm very proud of it. My expectations of the school were really high, and I think it surpassed them all.

 

First day of school – by Park
Bianca and I met immediately on the first day. She was staring at me because she had already decided that I had to be her best friend. It’s funny how we met the first day before even entering the classroom, and we’ve stayed best friends ever since. People often associate us with each other cause we’re always together, and when they ask us how we became such good friends, we tell them she punched me in the face on the first day here. And that’s a true story. 

 

Sletten trip – by Bianca
The trip to Sletten was magnificent. I personally have enjoyed many experiences there, starting with setting up the tent. I remember it took me something like 5 minutes, if not less, to set up the tent and it took my teammates an infinity of time. It was so fun to see the others go crazy because they couldn't put up the tent. All of this, in those 3 days in Sletten, we experienced a lot of adventures. I really walked frequently, in fact afterwards I had a muscle fever, but it was worth it. We performed many activities, like climbing trees, canoeing, playing football, running in the meadows and many others. My preferred activity was definitely when everyone bathed in the lake. It was really nice and relaxing, despite the fact that the water was very freezing. Everyone laughed, jumped into the water and everyone with a smile on their face. I think everyone enjoyed that moment with joy, under the glaring sun and full of serenity. It was one of those trips that I will always take inside with me. I will never forget the moments spent with my mates talking during the steep climbs, or when we were next to the bonfire eating and drinking hot chocolate, or simply when we were in the middle of the woods, sitting, telling stories and getting to recognize each other better. Truly an experience that I wish everyone to prove once in their life.

 

Bianca Bocrici and Signe Park, 1i

This year’s Sports Day was held with great success as we this year could gather students from all the locations of Aarhus Gymnasium - approximately 1200 students. The students were parted into teams with our classmates, and we had the option to participate in football, volleyball, rounders, basketball, ultimate, long jump, shot put, dodge ball, tug of war, precision throw, kubb, slackline and petanque.

Before we got sent out to compete in the mentioned disciplines, we had a collective warmup. All the students were gathered in the canteen area where music was playing and the teachers were guiding us through the warmup, with dance and stretching.

Although it was raining a bit, we still had fun at the outside disciplines but ended up competing against ourselves, as most teams went to play the inside sports. At the end of the day the points were counted, and the winners were announced - congratulations to 3. C from Aarhus Gymnasium, Aarhus C.

After that the Friday café began, and some people went home shortly after that. All in all, sports day was a fun day filled with activity, and a great way to end health week.

 

Teresa Nørgård Thomsen, IB2

In the Global Politics class, our IA [Internal Assessment – which is part of the student’s final grade] is a bit different from the other group 3 classes. Ours is called engagement activity and consists of us having to find a topic that we can go out and investigate and “engage” in. Within this activity, there is both active and passive engagement. Active engagement could be to conduct a visit to a place relating to your topic, writing an article, volunteer work, etc., where passive engagement would be the research behind your topic or an interview.  

 

In my engagement activity, I choose the topic of food waste, and within this topic, I choose to follow the pig industry of Denmark, and how it goes from pig to trash. I started out visiting a pig farm in Vejen with one of my classmates, on this farm we were shown around and got to see the pigs and how they are sorted, fed, and shipped off to the butcheries. After that, I visited a butchery called DanePork, located near Vejle, where I was shown around by the technical manager of the butchery, and interviewed him and the owner of the butchery about their food waste production. These two visits were some of my active engagement. From the butchery, the meat is shipped off the supermarkets. Therefore, I then choose to interview my local Bilka, a supermarket within the Salling Group Cooperation, about their food waste and how they manage it. After this is researched the different apps and services fighting the food waste fight in Denmark and also interviewed a couple of organizations that help in the fight for decreasing food waste. This was some of my passive engagement. I then gathered all the information I had learned into an article, about going from Pig to Trash. This is also part of my active engagement.  

 

Overall, I like the idea of pushing us to go out and investigate a political issue of our own choosing. However, it can be quite difficult and time-consuming to manage all the active engagement that needs to be done and fit it all into one paper. 

 

Caroline Emilie Ørnfelt, IB2

 

To see Caroline's article 'From Pig to Trash' please click on the link below. 

 

Warning: graphic images included

 

On the 19th September our IB graduating class departed from Musikhuset with the final destination of Lisbon, Portugal. For the next 5 days we experienced a lot of interesting activities in different regions of the city. During our visit, we had the opportunity to have city walks and get to know some of the most famous monuments that were relevant for the country’s history. After walking around the city, we did our CAS creative activity which was a blog that included reviews of the food and drinks that we tried in Lisbon. The learning experience continued the next day with our visit to the Maritime Museum in Belem, where we saw models of ships from different eras of navigation, and other significant memorials of Portuguese culture.

We also visited a beautiful beach in Cascais, where we tried, for the first time, stand-up paddle boarding, and although we fell a couple of times, it was a fun CAS experience. To add to our day, we had Italian food for lunch at a restaurant with an amazing view of the beach. And we found a place where we tried a typical Brazilian dessert called açaí. On our last day we went to the Oceanarium in Lisbon and observed different aquatic animals, including an interesting fish that looked like the moon surface, very cute otters and noisy penguins. Our trip concluded with a nice dinner at a restaurant called Butchers, where we had delicious steak and french fries. Later that night, we were getting ready and packing our suitcases for the departure back home. It was an amazing trip where we spent a lot of time with our classmates and developed a greater bond with each other.

 

Isadora Moschetta and Arantxa Gomez, IB2

 

Did you know that, in Denmark alone, 700.000 tons of perfectly edible food is wasted annually?

 

This is not only costing the Danish consumers 11 billion DKK on average each year, on food that goes directly into the bin, but the amount of food waste produced globally is also contributing to the ongoing, and very real, climate crisis our planet is facing.

 

Our mission as the climate committee at AGT is to create a more climate-conscious learning environment and encourage students, as well as teachers and parents, to actively make changes in their everyday lives, in order to help protect our planet.

 

We decided to dedicate the month of September to spreading awareness about food waste and how it can be reduced. This is especially important because around 260.000 of the 700.000 tons of food waste produced annually in Denmark comes from households. This means that the responsibility lies with all of us when it comes to changing the way we treat the food we buy. Throughout September, we have put up posters around the school with tips for reducing our individual waste of food. We have talked to the school canteen about what they are doing to minimise food waste. We have been active on social media, sharing important facts about food waste, and we have also made a quiz about food waste with food-related prizes for the winners, which was met with enthusiasm among the students.

 

Before we get into some tips for reducing food waste in our own households, it is relevant to talk about why food waste is harmful to the environment in the first place. Think about the foods you eat every day. Before that food ends up on your plate, it has to be grown, processed, packaged and transported to the supermarket, where you can then pick it up and bring it home. When that food then ends up in the bin for whatever reason, all the resources that went into each of those steps it took to get it there are wasted along with the food itself. After the food has then been thrown away, it might end up in a landfill where it rots, creating methane, which is a harmful greenhouse gas that has 86 times the effect on global warming as carbon dioxide.

 

Now that we have established the factual evidence behind why it is important we work towards reducing our food waste, it is time to talk about how we can do this in our own households. Here are 3 ways YOU can help to reduce food waste:

➔ Avoid buying more food than you need

➔ Freeze leftovers instead of throwing them away

➔ Make sure you are storing your foods correctly at the right temperature

 

Eddie Paldam, IB1