Easter Island

By Alena B.

Today I'm going to tell you about an amazing island that is part of Chile. The island is called Easter Island and is located on the Pacific Ocean about 2,000 miles from Chile. Yes! 2,000 miles!
The nearest island is 1,000 miles away. We're about 1,000 miles from Florida, can you imagine having your closest neighbors THAT far away?

The natives settled here 1,500 years ago and they called their island Rapa Nui because the island was shaped like a canoe paddle and Rapa Nui means canoe paddle.

Easter Island was discovered on Easter by Dutch Explorers in 1722, and that's how it got its name.

The island is surrounded by enormous statues called Moai that were carved from volcanic rock found on the island. The native people moved the statues all around. Most of the statues are 13 feet tall but one is 72 feet high and another is 32 feet high and weighs 82 tons.

887 Moai have been found around the island. One interesting fact is that the statues face towards the center of the island not toward the ocean. Eventually, the native people all died.

You can visit Rapa Nui or Easter Island today to see these amazing statues.

The Atacama Desert in Chile

By Genevieve S.

I'm here to tell you about the driest place on the earth! This desert is located in Northern Chile between the Andes Mountains and the Coastal Mountains along the Pacific Ocean. It's called the Atacama Desert, it is 600 miles long, and it is the driest place on the planet.

It is the driest because of something called a rain shadow. Warm moist air that rises up the mountainside where it cools and loses water before reaching the desert. This makes the desert really dry because of the mountains on both sides.

The desert has several salt lakes that formed long ago. Now, they are evaporating and concentrating the mineral salts in the water. The Atacama is one of the only places on earth that rain has never touched. Plant life in the desert is supported by marine fog called camanchaca.

One really neat fact is that the soil that is found in the Atacama desert is like soil found on Mars!

Chile – the National Dance and Mapuche People

By Julia C. and Ariel B.

The national dance of Chile is called the Cueca. The Cueca has Spanish and African influences. The dance looks like a rooster attracting a female chicken. The rooster acts crazy and the female chicken looks embarrassed and shy while they are doing the dance. When a boy likes a girl, instead of asking her out on a date, he will ask her to dance the cueca at festival or celebration.


The Mapuche people live in Central and Southern Chile. Traditional Mapuche live in big wooden huts with thatched roofs, which only one family can live in that is called a ruka. Before Spanish invaders, the Mapuche lived in rukas that were built far away from each other, but war and other fighting taught the Mapuche that it was safer to live closer together. The Mapuche Indians create instruments that are known as zamonas (pan flutes) and kultrunes (drums) which are used in special ceremonies. These talented indians sing folk songs, or tonadas, and these folk songs are often sad.

Letters to World's Finest Chocolate

Here are some letters our jungle club members wrote to the 8th largest chocolate company in the U.S. and the leading manufacturer of chocolate for fundraisers in schools, churches and community groups. The letters are meant to encourage World's Finest Chocolate to use Fair Trade cocoa in their products. You can see from the emotion in these letters that the students were anxious for change after learning about the problems facing chocolate farmers in South America and other countries where cocoa is grown:

Edmond Opler, Chairman and CEO
World's Finest CHocolate
4801 Lawndale
Chicago, IL 60632-3062
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Dear Mr. Opler,
I love chocolate. But the way you get chocolate makes me not want to eat chocolate. I am 10 years old and I can go to school, but the children who are forced to make chocolate cannot go to school.
You should consider the well being of all children who are working for you. Please make it possible that they can go to school.
Please try doing fair trade chocolate. And stop forcing children to work on your cocoa farms.
Sincerely,
Sophia S.
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Dear Mr. Opler,
I am beside myself that coca farmers do not have a choice like me. So you need to help them and start selling Fair Trade Products.
START SELLING FAIR TRADE PRODUCTS!
From,
Emma F.
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Dear Mr. Opler,
I love chocolate but don't like the way you do it. You shoud let children go to school. I am also disappointed that cocoa farmers don't get paid enough money. Also you shouldn't use child slaves. Please use Fair Trade Chocolate.
Sincerely,
Emma B.
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Dear Mr. Opler,
I feel really disappointed that children are working on cocoa farms instead of going to school. I am also disappointed that the farmers who are working on the farms aren't getting paid enough. But if you use fair trade chocolate, farmers will get paid more and then their cildren will be able to go to school and get an education. PLEASE USE FAIR TRADE CHOCOLATE!
Sincerely,
Ariel B.

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Dear Mr. Opler,
It makes me very mad that the children are not able to go to school since all cocoa farmers are poor. The children aren't able to go to school so they will be poor and so will their children. I HATE the way that you use children slaves.
For these reasons you should start selling Fair Trade chocolate.

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!

Sincerely,
Emma R.

Where Does Chocolate Come From?

Have you ever thought about where chocolate comes from? Well, even though chocolate tastes good, the story isn't so sweet. Chocolate comes from the dried beans of the cocoa tree and one of the places where this tree grows is Bolivia. Cocoa trees need about 80 inches of rain per year. A cocoa tree grows near the equator and grows between 50-200 feet tall.

Many cocoa farmers are very poor and only get about $.25 per pound of cocoa. Because families are so poor, many children have to work to help support their families. Even worse, some children have to work as slaves on these farms. These children support their families by working in fields all day long instead of going to school. Some cocoa farmers don't care about the land and hurt the rainforest by cutting down trees or using chemicals on plants to grow the cocoa.

But there is something that we can do to help! We can buy fair-trade chocolate. When we buy fair-trade chocolate, we help to pay a fair price for the farmer's hard work.

We wrote lots of letters to companies asking them to sell their chocolate fair-trade. We hope it will help!
Keep walking, Stoneleigh.