Green or Been

I am a secondary school teacher, teaching in Sung Siew Secondary School Sandakan, one of the best school in the state of Sabah, Malaysia.
When I was introduced to Maxis CyberlinQ Competition 2006, I had to come up with a project to serve the community. By then I was already introduced to SIMCA [Sugud Islands Conservation Area]. Realizing how noble this private organization trying to do their part for the environment, I wanted to do my part as a teacher. So I grabbed the chances through this competition, taking the theme of environment. With it, I was inspired to build a team called 'Green or Been' with many helps from parents and teachers. With the GOB team, consisted of 10 students and two teachers, we started off with many successful projects that overwhelmed me to see how these young generation do care. To name a few of the projects - Most Adorning Class, Recycle Reduce Reuse, Mini Botanical Garden, WWF Day, Green Week, charity to clean the beach and charity at our famous Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. Thats not all, we were the first local school to adopt two babies orangutan named Naru and Sogo-Sogo, and also adopted coral reef named 'Sung Siew Reef'. That didn't stop there, we also joined WWF in their tree planting project. With all these, I'm proud to announce, we won the competition nationally. This is a proof to many that conservation surely can make a difference!
This year, I'm very pleased to get invited to go to Lankayan Island Dive Resort again. The GOB team did a mural painting of Sea Turtle's Life Cycle. The team learnt a lot about conservation of coral reef and sea turtle, besides had great amazing time. It is a very beautiful island indeed.
Our upcoming project is Mangrove Planting at Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary, soon in September. I will update that here then :)
Conservation is the way!

The Complex World of Tomato Sauce

I was stunned to read the following in Oprah magazine's Feb. 2006 issue:

"Is Plastic Affecting our Fertility?"
"The findings: Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical in plastics that mimics estrogen, causes health problems in animals at far lower doses than most people are exposed to every day.

What you need to know: Polycarbonate, the hard plastic that contains BPA, is found in many products, including baby bottles and the inside coating of food cans. Heating and repeated washing can cause leaching, and significant levels of the chemicals have been measured in humans. Of the 115 animal studies reviewed in a recent Environmental Health Perspectives article, 94 showed that even small amounts of BPA can cause fertility problems, hyperactivity, altered immune function, and early sexual maturation. Plastics makers maintain their products are sage (of the 11 industry-sponsored studies, none found evidence of harm), but there are efforts to ban BPA from children's goods. Frederick vom Saal, PdD, the paper's lead author, called BPA "a poster chemical for ADHD" and recommends avoiding foods sterilized in the can, such as tomatoes ("massive amounts of BPA," he says). Also be cautious using clear plastic baby bottles--find out more at www.environmentcalifornia.org."

I've found some interesting organic tomato sauces in glass jars that I've been using in our cooking at home, and we've been ordering much less pizza and spaghetti when out.

My friend Julia has also tracked down how much BPA is in the bottled water we are getting from Alhambra water due to the sterilization process which super heats the bottles, which leech BPA into the drinking water we were buying because we thought it was safer. More on that in further posts.