Easter holidays

Hi everybody!!

I am back again after Easter holidays!! I spent my holidays with my family: relaxing and eating a lot of chocolate. On Easter I went to mess with my family and then I worked in a restaurant near my village: I enjoyed myself a lot because I worked with some of my friends ^_^. As you know I am a dynamic person and I don’t like staying the whole day sat around a table eating lamb and cakes.

(Photo source Flickr)

On the day after: Pasquetta I went to Trento with my friends: it was a great fun! We had a pick nick in a beautiful green area, we ate eggs and grill. Moreover, we ate a lot of chocolate eggs and enjoyed ourselves to compare the little presents inside them. I found a small puppet (a little frog), actually it was one of the best presents among those of my friends! We were around 50 persons, it was really exiting and we had a good time. (Photo source Flickr)
It is a pity that holidays are already finished ‘_’

Let’s talk a little about my university’s activities…

Next Monday I will have my fourth skype exchange, I am pretty sure that it will be really exiting. We are going to talk a little about Easter
and compare how we (me and my American peer) celebrated Easter’s day.

Our English teacher (she is from USA) told me and my classmates that in USA children receive the so called Easter baskets. (Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pengrin/434562452/)

After that we are supposed to turn to the main topic of our conversation which is “water resources in Italy and USA”. Water is really essential to all forms of human life, it covers 71% of Earth’s surface (source: wikipedia). Water represents a precious resource due to its extensive use in agriculture, high-tech manufacturing, and energy production. Consequently water require a better management and sustainable use.

In my opinion this is a quite interesting topic. Recently I surfed the net to find some useful information in order to write an article on the wiki page that me and my classmates are working on and I discovered many new things. I wrote an article about “macro” and “micro” hydroelectric systems in Italy. In particular, micro-hydroelectric systems have many economical and environmental benefits. In my next skype exchange I would like to ask my peers if in Louisiana there are similar hydroelectric systems.

That's all for the moment
Bye
Francesca

Alternative Enrgy Sources

HI EVERYBODY!!

I am going to talk a little more about my skype-exchanges. In my last skype exchange I spoke with another young women from Tulane University: Sarah. We spoke about an interesting topic: renewable sources of energy. It was a really interesting conversation; we talked almost one hour about how our countries face the problem of alternative energy sources. She told me that in the US the government is not investing a lot on renewable sources of energy because of the economic interests of some big oil companies. I replied her that it is quite the same situation in Italy. Unfortunately, the partnership between political and economic power slows down the development of alternative energy sources.

In my opinion it is really important that people start to develop the consciousness of the importance of preserving and protecting the environment since a very young age. For this reason it is advisable that schools develop some courses about environmental problems and alternative sources of energy so that in the futute people will be able to manage environmental policies better that our politicians are doing now.

In Italy renewable sources of energy are not exploited as they should be; however, some Italian regions are showing a common interest in starting developing the consciousness towards the potentiality of alternative sources of energy. The following are some examples:

Veneto and Piemonte are promoting the transformation of wooden biomasses into energy;

Lombardia is exploiting manure as an extraordinary energy reserve;

Trentino Alto Adige has the greatest photovoltaic installation.

Undoubtedly, these initiatives represent only little steps but they are really important in order to start developing the consciousness of saving energy and using environmental-friendly energy sources. I think that everyone should develop the consciousness of not wasting energy and use energy sources in a more responsable way.

(Source of the picture: http://www.re-energy.ca/images/reenergyindex_r3_c2.jpg)

That's all for the moment
bye bye
Francesca