Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World

Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World — page 5 — (cid:36)(cid:86)(cid:76)(cid:68) (cid:38)(cid:75)(cid:68)(cid:79)(cid:68)(cid:81)(cid:69)(cid:72)(cid:72)(cid:79)(cid:3) (cid:53)(cid:72)(cid:74)(cid:76)(cid:82)(cid:81)(cid:15)(cid:3) (cid:37)(cid:68)(cid:81)(cid:74)(cid:79)(cid:68)(cid:71)(cid:72)(cid:86)(cid:75) (cid:82) (cid:79)(cid:86) (cid:82) (cid:75) (cid:37)(cid:82)(cid:68)(cid:87) (cid:3) (cid:54) (cid:70) Wate r Water Everywhere (cid:44)n Bangladesh students can miss months of school during monsoon season when heavy rains cause ﬂ oods Even when schools are open it can be impossible for kids to get to them Climate change is making the ﬂ ooding even more extreme by melting glaciers in the Himalaya Mountains The runoff swells rivers and makes them overﬂ ow their banks The ﬂ oods damage farms schools and other buildings In the past few years thousands of schools have been damaged and hundreds have been destroyed completely 8 Fact All the school boats are built locally using materials found in the region Many have ﬂ at bottoms so they can glide through shallow waters and over ﬂ ooded land

Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World — page 6 — (cid:56)(cid:81)(cid:86)(cid:76)(cid:81)(cid:78)(cid:68)(cid:69)(cid:79)(cid:72)(cid:3)(cid:54)(cid:70)(cid:75)(cid:82)(cid:82)(cid:79)(cid:86) After seeing many of his friends and family members in Bangladesh miss out on an education an architect named Mohammed Rezwan decided he was not going to let ﬂ oods stop any more children from getting to school He ﬁ gured that the best way to beat the rising waters is to rise with them on a boat school then the school should come to them he explains He raised enough money to open the ﬁ rst school boat in 2002 Now there are ninety boats that travel along a 250-kilometer 155-mile stretch of rivers and streams in northwestern Bangladesh giving thousands of kids the chance to learn I thought that if the children cannot come to the (cid:36)(cid:75)(cid:82)(cid:92)(cid:15)(cid:3)(cid:11)(cid:38)(cid:79)(cid:68)(cid:86)(cid:86)(cid:12)(cid:3)(cid:48)(cid:68)(cid:87)(cid:72)(cid:86)(cid:4) Boat school is the combination of a school bus and schoolhouse says Mohammed Six days a week each boat stops at different villages along the shore picking up children who are mostly in the same grade When the classroom is full about thirty to thirty-ﬁ ve students the work begins For three hours the students have lessons in math reading writing English Bengali the environment and conservation Then the boat returns all the students to their riverbank stops From there the boat moves on to pick up another set of students for another three-hour lesson Each boat offers three sets of lessons a day In the evenings the boats also act as community centers giving adults the chance to learn about things like health care and new rice-farming methods (cid:58)(cid:76)(cid:85)(cid:72)(cid:79)(cid:72)(cid:86)(cid:86)(cid:3)(cid:58)(cid:68)(cid:89)(cid:72)(cid:86) Even though the boats ﬂ oat from place to place they have electricity to run up to four computers a printer a DVD player and a CD player Solar panels on the roofs provide all the electricity they need The boats are connected to the internet through wireless technology Besides all the modern technology the boats also stock hundreds of books ALL ABOARD If it weren’t for the boats coming to pick up the children at their doorsteps many young girls might not be going to school at all Their parents wouldn’t let them travel out of the village to the nearest government school because they believe the journey is dangerous Also it takes them away from their chores for too long Now that the boat schools come to them the girls have time to both learn and work

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