Hey, good evening and welcome to 2021's version of Montpelier Civic Forum and we are going to talk about all of the issues that are involved in Town Meeting Day and I hope that you'll follow each of these. We've got some really good candidates this year. We've got candidates from Consul, we've got candidates for the school board, we've got one person who's running for a five-year term on the Park Commission. That's a good show. We've got Bill Fraser in on the school budget. We've got Jim Murphy, the president of the school board talking about the school budget. We've got Anne Watson for yet another year of the mayor reviewing the city all the way from the wayside, all the way up towards the baseball field, all the way from the plant, the sewage plant out. So you're going to find out all about Montpelier. That's a good show too. And this one I have a sitting school board member, Emma Bay Hansen. Emma, welcome to Montpelier Civic Forum. Thank you. Glad to be here. Could you tell me a little bit about Emma Bay Hansen? What part of town do you live in? I live in the College Hill neighborhood. Not too far of a walk from here, the Okramita Orchimedia Studios. And I grew up also in this area of town. So I grew up off of College Street on McKinley Street with my parents, Nat and Martha Winthrop. I'm not sure if you know them. Now that means that you walked down the hill to Union Elementary School? Yes. We walked to school every day and walked home from school every day. And then you walked down Liberty to get down to or walked over to college to get to MSMS? I think I still walked down Liberty from my vantage point on McKinley Street. I would walk down Liberty Street. And you had a friend who had a car to take you to Montpelier High School. I walked mostly to Montpelier High School and then I was lucky enough to to get a car in maybe my sophomore year of high school. So I started driving. Okay, what year did you get out of high school? 1996. Who was the principal at Montpelier High School? Was it Charlie Phillips at that point? Yep, Charlie Phillips. And then I do believe it changed in my last year there, but I can't remember who took over. Elementary school? Who was your principal at that point? I can't remember my principal. Oh, this is so horrible. I will say that I had Mrs. Mello was my kindergarten teacher, a beloved kindergarten teacher in this town who just retired last year. And my daughter who is now in fourth grade ended up also having Mary Mello as her kindergarten teacher when she went through the system. So it was a really wonderful sort of full circle moment for us. Now you have kids in the schools? So I have a fourth grader and an eighth grader. You weren't always on the school board. How long have you been on the school board? I came on the school board to fill a vacancy created when Steve Hinchin resigned and I believe that was in early May, late April or early May. So I'm I'm fresh on the board. Now what convinced you to go how long had you been thinking about the board? And what what convinced you to actually make the jump? Well, I mean, I followed the board, the school board pretty closely just because I'm actually, you know, part of your first question is tell me a little bit about yourself. But I'm an educator. I was a high school social studies teacher for six years in Vermont. Where? Both at Danville High School and then end at U 32 High School. And so I bring that love of passion for education and love of kids and then my own kids, of course, are in the district. So I've been following the school board since my kids entered the school system. And I just felt like, you know, I'll throw my name in the hat to to be supportive of the work that they're doing during these crazy times since we had already been in the pandemic at that point. And so I just thought maybe my expertise as an educator could support the work of the board. Are you zoomed out? Definitely zoomed out. Yes, I do a lot of I work right now for the Vermont Higher Education Collaborative and we transitioned completely from in person professional development. We offer professional development to mostly Vermont educators. And so we had been doing all in person workshops at conference centers and such. And we had to completely pivot and transition to all virtual. So all of our workshops are now held virtually via zoom. And so if I'm not on zoom for my job, I'm on zoom for the school board. So it's a lot of zoom. Was the school board as much work as you thought it would be? More. It was more work than I thought it would be. Yes. Your kids, when the pandemic hit, and you had the choice to leave them in school or take them home, what for virtual learning? Yeah. Which did you choose? You know, my older son, I my older kid, I gave him the choice because I felt like he was at an age where he was actually working pretty well. In spring, they were all virtual, all the kids were virtual. So we kind of got a taste of what that would be like for our family. And he was pretty successful with it.  And he chose to go in person. I think most kids that age, their social lives are paramount. And so I think just the thought of after so much lockdown, even just seeing kids his own age in person was really exciting for him. So he chose in person. And then for my younger daughter, we just felt like in person instruction was going to be best for her. It was she had been, I mean, you talk about adults getting zoomed out. I think it was a real struggle for her to connect with her teachers virtually and to connect with the material, you know, through computer programs and stuff like that. So it was, we felt it would be really important for her and we're glad that they gave us the option of attending in person. Now, you know, people who are involved in the virtual as well, I imagine. Definitely. You didn't know the superintendent that well at that point in time. You know her well on her team now. Very well. What was it like the trust factor? You have your kid coming back into the school and you're trusting that it's a safe environment and that it's structured correctly. Yeah. What was that leap like for you as a parent? I mean, I just think it was such a strange time for everybody and and it pushed us all to places where we never imagined having to go mentally or emotionally. So I think that was part of my desire to serve on the board was to kind of get a little bit more of an insider scoop on on how are they planning to go back to school safely in a global pandemic. And once I sat on the board and started, you know, attending all of the meetings, it was clear to me that our admin team and led by Libby Bonesteel was doing an incredible job and being very thoughtful and considerate and going, you know, working overtime every week and and working with the Department of Health and just trying to come up with education for that matter. Yeah, leading or being guided by their guidelines. And and I feel like even going, you know, one or two steps beyond what was required sometimes. And and I just fully trusted at that point that I felt like our team was doing a great job with designing an in person experience that was going to be safe.  Yeah. How is our experience compared to other school districts? You might be in touch with other school boards from your teaching experience in Danville and U 32. How does our our system, our approach to this take differently than theirs? Well, I don't know what every, you know, what every school is doing. But I know there's I think U 32. And I know that at Twinfield, they're doing a hybrid model where kids are in person a few days a week, and then they go virtual the other days of the week. And and I've heard mixed feedback, you know, this is a very these are very personal to each kid, I think what works best for them and each family, because some families are home and they're working from home and they are able to support their kids in a virtual environment. And then other families, you know, don't have the luxury of being at home to support their kids. So when their younger kids are home for many hours a day without adult supervision, that can be a struggle. So I think that's the main difference is that Montpelier is, you know, one of the few of the local schools that I know that offered consistent in person instruction, you know, five days a week. Were you on the board when that discussion was happening over hybrid? I know we must have had that discussion in town. Yeah, you know, I think I was, I mean, first of all, that that decision was basically beyond the purview of the board. The actual decisions of how to move forward with instruction were made by the admin team. It wasn't, you know, the the board never voted. Should we do a hybrid model? Should we do an in person? But I'm sure that they sought your counsel on that. Yeah, and I'm sure that if if it came down to there was a decision being made that we didn't agree with, then maybe we could have, you know, shifted gears. I think some school boards in Vermont did that and changed what the decision of the admin was. But I never felt like the board questioned Libby's expertise in decision making during that whole process. Now keep in mind that my son hadn't been in Montpelier school since 2012. So we're part of that community of Montpelier that has kids who have gotten out of that school district. I know that there was some reluctance in terms of making that decision that you're going to be in the school, or you're going to be virtual, and you can't you can't get out of that decision that once if it doesn't work for you in virtual, you can't go into the school. Well, there was always a clause written into Libby's presentations about what the options were going to be, that if there was, you know, a real problem with instruction and learning for a child, that there would be able to be exceptions made. So that sort of put my mind at ease for like if if something's really not working for a child or really not working for a family, exceptions can be made. When we had the hockey outbreak at Union of COVID and we had to go virtual again, was your family involved in that? Like my daughter was not in the class that was impacted. But I think all families in Montpelier were involved in that just because when it started to hit close to home, you feel, you know, because in Vermont at the time, as everybody knows, our numbers were so low. And then to have that spike be right in our community, it definitely hit close to home. And I think got everybody in this town involved in feeling like it was now in their backyard. Now I'm going to speak from point of ignorance because I don't have a child in the school. What happens when a teacher gets COVID? Or how do we cover that? They have a great it's they have a pod system at the school. A pod is a group of kids that are isolated to and teachers that are isolated within that group. So they don't every every kid is assigned to a pod. It's basically how many pods would be in a class in a first grade class? Five. Okay. Yeah. It's just like classrooms. It's not the bluebirds, blackbirds and redbirds. It's basically just like homeroom class. But instead of a typical homeroom class, so at Union School, if you were in first grade, you would spend a certain amount of time in your homeroom class. But then you would go out to a gym class, you would go out to an art class, you would go out to a music class, you go out to library specials specials, right? Yeah. And then you would go to recess with your whole grade and maybe one other grade, you would go to the lunch room with your whole grade. So really now those classrooms have become pods, we're calling them. And they have two teachers at least assigned to each pod. And that way if one of them has to be out, the other one can take over instruction. Boy, I'm sure the board has possibly touched on this. Is that a new instructional model post pandemic that you see staying around after the pandemic? I don't know what we're going to teaching. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what we're going to keep after, after we're, we can look back on COVID. But I think there's a lot to be learned in, you know, a lot of lessons to be learned and a lot of things potentially to carry over in our culture at large and in education. You know, there's definitely some things to be learned and maybe that's one of them. What are you hearing from the parents who are doing this virtually? What is their experience like? How, how, how many hours does a child spend virtual? What happens when my fourth grader is studying at my place virtually? I just think it's really, it's really mixed, you know, it just really depends on the family. I can tell you that one of my colleagues has her two children at home with her. And so, you know, there's funny things that happen where she's at a work meeting and her kids will pop on and they like to say hi and they might be like sort of making jokes in the background or making noise in the background. But that's just life right now. And I think we're all having to sort of adapt and be, you know, forgiving and accepting of all sorts of things that might not have seemed professional prior to this pandemic. I think, I keep couching this because I know so little about it. I believe that parents are creating pods outside, even in the virtual world where groups of students are kind of clustering together for support. Yeah, I haven't heard too much about that. Most of the people I know who are, who have chosen the virtual option have done that because of, you know, risk assessment and wanting to reduce exposure to this virus. So most of the people that I know who are doing virtual seem to be pretty much limiting their contact, you know, with, and that's why they chose virtual. How do those kids do extras? How do they do art? How do they do... Well, there are specials at Union Elementary School are mostly recorded. They will do like a recording of an art lesson and then those will be shared with the students who are doing virtual. And I have to admit, I don't know a lot about the, it's called the Virtual Academy. I don't know a lot about, enough about it really because I'm not part of it and my kids aren't part of it. Most of the kids are in middle school and all of the kids in high school are most of the kids in high school, live. Are you asking like what percentage of? Yes, I'm asking what percentage, roughly what percentage are doing live, middle school or high school? I can't answer that, like I could make a guess but I wouldn't want to be quoted. Sure, make a guess and everybody will think you're crazy. About 10 to 15% would be my guess, but then maybe you can confirm that when you interview Jim or Lily. Jim Murphy, talking about the school budget and I will ask him that question, school board president. In terms of academics, what's your largest concern about what's going in the school and then we'll get to virtual. Can you still do the same kinds of evaluations that you normally do? I mean, the board is very concerned with evaluating so that they can do an accountability model to see whether the administration is delivering the kinds of results that the board is looking for. Are you talking about just in general, are you talking about because of COVID and sort of what happened with spring? Because of COVID and the uniqueness of this. Yeah. Are we still doing evaluation as we always have? Yeah, I mean, there's evaluation happening every day if you know any teachers and I'm a teacher. That's like really the boots on the ground of evaluating a student and where they're at is the teacher who sees them every day.  They're doing assessments three, four times a day in the classroom. Just quick, they call them formative assessments. So it's sort of like a quick check-in. You might be seeing that somebody's struggling with spelling words. You might be seeing that someone's struggling with their math and you can do those quick sort of assessments in the moment of kids. And so the classroom teachers really are like sort of the front lines of assessment. And then there's all different, I think you might be talking about more like. The new England assessment tool. So we are, I know that my son just did the star assessment which is not a statewide assessment model but it's a school district-wide assessment model that's more like what you're thinking of about a kid sitting at a computer and doing a test and then getting a score at the end. So, yes, the answer is yes, we're still doing some of those. I feel like Libby did mention something about the statewide assessments and the federal assessments. And I can't remember what they had decided on those if they were gonna continue with them or not. Do we still have, even though we have masks and social distancing and all, do we still have parent teachers conferences? Yes, absolutely. And you get to look at the portfolio of work that the kids are doing? Yeah. I mean, it's a little different. All of our conferences have been via Zoom. So, more Zoom. Yeah, more Zoom. So, yeah, but we have a conference scheduled on Monday for our parent teacher conference for our daughter in fourth grade on Monday. Do the kids still set their own grades as to how they feel they're doing? Yes, so they do a self-assessment. So when we got the report, we also get report cards. So we're getting those regularly. And with my daughter's report card this year, yeah, it has, the report card is sort of printed up with her evaluation, her self-evaluation. And then the teacher's evaluation comes in printed form. Now, realizing you're within walking distance of two of the schools, how are we doing the transportation? Those school buses where you don't want kids squeezed into each other? Yeah, I don't know where, you mean in terms of COVID and spacing and stuff like that? Absolutely. I think that I haven't heard any complaints about the way that it went. I know that in the beginning, that was one of the primary concerns in the beginning of the school year was would we have enough space on the school buses to do proper social distancing? And also the temperature checks and that type of thing before kids got on the bus, would we have enough, you know? Could you explain the temperature check before kids get on the bus? Yeah, so I wanna say that my kids don't take the bus because we live too close to be able to be eligible to take the bus. So again, this is my understanding of it, but I don't know if it's totally accurate. I know that in the beginning, there was a rule and I don't know if it was established by the Department of Health, but I think it was established by the Department of Health that kids should be temperature checked and the list of questions, I don't know if you've seen it, but there's these little tickets that every kid brings to school with them every day. And it says their name and the date and the parent's signature and there's a list of COVID questions much like you would get if you went into a dentist's office these days. And that includes kids from Montpellier High School? Yes, I believe so. Well, I'm sure that's popular at Montpellier High School. They probably can fill it out themselves, but so you're supposed to take your temperature. So my kids take, we take their temperature every day at home and we check off all of the questions about, you know, have we traveled out of state? Are we under quarantine? Is anyone awaiting COVID results? All of these questions, do you have any symptoms? And then we send our kids with that physical ticket to school. And I believe now that's probably what they're doing for school bus kids is that the guardians are filling those out for the children before they get onto the bus. But in the beginning of the school year, it was a concern and then- Particularly for kids from Roxbury, I imagine. Because they're coming a distance on that school bus. Oh, like they're sitting on the bus for longer. Yeah, that might be true. I wonder, some of our kids that got picked up early might spend almost as much time as a Roxbury kid on the school bus just because of how many stops there are. So I'm not sure about that. Let's sum, I think the elephant in the room is low income kids and low achieving kids. The board has to have a concern for their achievement, which during normal years, the board has been concerned about the achievement gap for as long as I can remember and I can remember fairly long in this district. What's the board's concern on that? Particularly with the lack of solid computer access in some low income families, if not many low income families, how is the board viewing that? I'm pretty sure that the computer access issue is a non-issue these days because I know that all of the kids at Union School and all of the kids at Main Street Middle School all have Chromebooks assigned to them that they can take home with them. Do they have internet access at home? Some might not. So there's the achievement. A Chromebook doesn't do a whole lot of good when you don't have internet access. Correct. So there's the achievement gap that tends to run side by side with the opportunity gap. What is the opportunity gap? Opportunity gap is what you're talking about about low income kids that don't have the same opportunities as their higher income peers. Sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But there tends to be, the opportunity gap tends to align with the achievement gap. And it's definitely one of those things, just a common theme in education where you're always worried about what can you do for those kids who are struggling. And a lot of times, the kids who are struggling are the kids who are also struggling at home. Struggling in what sense at home? All different ways. So it could be that, it could be maybe their parents or guardians are not available to them as a resource when they arrive home. It could be what you said about Wi-Fi. It could be that they have to work a job after they get home from school, but not every kid. Or the family is stressed because of long-term layoff. Yeah. Long-term unemployment. Or there could be like a sick grandparent living with them that they have to, I mean, there's all sorts of things that could be occupying a student's time when they exit the school building at home. And those things make it harder to succeed academically. They layer on top of your schoolwork and homework. So it can make it more challenging for that kid to achieve the same thing as their peer who doesn't have those stressors at home. What do we do with our library closed? The second floor of that library that kids in this town have lived in hasn't been opened forever. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot, I just think that that sort of taps into this, you know, the sad side effect of a global pandemic is that there's just not as much connection. There's not as much community connection. You don't have as many like public places to go. Kids can't just exit the school and go hang out with 10 friends in the library. So yeah, it's definitely a loss. And I think I'm sure some kids are feeling that pretty hard. How's our district dealing with sadness with just the psychological sadness that accompanies a kid having to wear a mask? Yeah, I'm sure it's been tough. I don't really know. One thing that I do know is that our district invests very heavily in social emotional well-being of children. How does it do that? We have, for example, we have a designated social worker, one each at Union School, Main Street Middle School and Montpelier High School. And that's pretty unique to a public school setting. Usually most schools contract that social work out. And we have our own social workers on staff. And then we also have guidance counselors. Can I return to the social workers? What's their job spec? What are they doing in those schools? Let's start with the high school and work our way down. What would the high school social worker be doing? So they take care of kids who are in need, kids who are struggling, kids who are having a hard time. And in particular, if there is something going on with that child outside of the school building that they need help inside the school building with, then the social worker would be in charge of that. Is that at risk children or is that any child who basically is struggling with teenage angst or beyond teenage angst? I think it would be any child in the building would fall under the purview of our social workers and our guidance counselors. So I don't wanna speak for how they divide that between guidance counselors and social workers. I know that the social worker at Union School, I believe, is also the district's homeless liaison. So it deals with our population of kids that do not have permanent housing. Would the social worker, particularly in the high school, let's stay at that one, would they be working with the court system? Children who somehow engaged in the court system and are being monitored? I'm sure, yes, I'm sure they would. Or would that be the guidance counselor? I'm not positive how they divide that work. So, and I don't know if you're talking about when DCF is involved or if a child, a teenager has committed some sort of crime and is in the court system or if they're in the court system because of some sort of DCF involvement. I'm not sure what you're getting at, the question. Well, if you're not sure what I'm getting at, I'm not sure what I'm getting at. That was a pretty broad question. Yeah, I mean, I think, but definitely they, social workers and the guidance. DCF standing for what? Department of Child and Children and Family Services. But we have one in each building. Except for Roxbury, but yes, the other three. How many students are in Roxbury these days, roughly? I think it's in the 30s. It should be shrinking in theory. Meaning because they're coming to Montpelier. Exactly. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how that has looked over the last few years. But we have a social worker assigned to each school. The behavior modification system in union. That changes every so often. We change style and approach. Has the board looked at that since you've been on? I have not been part of a big discussion around the behavioral approach that union elementary school takes. I know that we are starting to look at how discipline is what the discipline systems are in all of the schools in the district. We're starting to take a closer look at that. Why are you looking at that? Is that part of the study that's been going on in terms of equity of, what am I trying to say? Yeah, so in. If you'll help me with that. I think you're in charge of that committee. I think I can help you. So in September, the school board created the school safety and police relations committee. And part of- That was at a request of parents, of a group of parents, yes? It was, yes. So since May, since I started on the board, we've been hearing a lot of testimony all through the summer calls to examine more closely the role of the school resource officer, commonly referred to as the SRO. So there was a lot of testimony asking the board to consider that role in our schools and take a look at it more closely. And so that's what we, the way that we did that was by creating this committee that we started in, started having meetings of the committee in October, I believe. Now what more time on the title of the committee? School safety and police relations committee. School safety meaning what? Cause there's two sides to this. Well, that was sort of the first thing that we delved into is to define what does this community, what are the community's values from a variety of stakeholder perspectives around safety in schools?  Safety defined as how, is it the physical safety, the psychological safety? All of the above. It turns out it's all of the above. So, and different people put place higher value on different aspects of safety. So for one family, they might place the social emotional safety of their child as a higher priority than the physical safety of their child. And then other families, they might be thinking more about the physical safety than the social emotional wellbeing. Has there ever really been a serious physical safety issue in our district?  Yeah. Do you feel that that's a real concern beyond the push and shove of being a teenager? Well, I can't, I think there's always going to be safety issues in schools. Absolutely. And sometimes that, and they're real, sometimes that can be a child acting out and putting other children in danger in some way. Sometimes it could be an angry parent or guardian who comes onto campus. It could be those types of things. I haven't personally heard of any stories this year and we're living in different circumstances where nobody's allowed in the buildings. Exactly. So this is a different... Well taken. So I haven't heard a lot, the safety issue hasn't arose a lot, but it does, it just does. In any school, there's always gonna be a few safety issues that surface. Were there parents who were concerned about a racial component of school discipline? And did that fall into this? Yeah. So there's lots of, there's like a handful of organizations out there that have, including the Vermont Human Rights Commission, the Vermont, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, Black Lives Matter, Vermont Legal Aid, all of these organizations have been pointing to both statewide and national data that shows that marginalized kids, whether disabilities, LGBTQ, BIPOC, which is Black, Indigenous, people of color. You beat me to the acro... I'm trying to work with you here. So those populations of kids are disproportionately impacted by school discipline. And that's just, you know, that's data. Data shows us that. Now discipline in schools isn't always tied to school resource officers, obviously, but we do see that both at school level and when you're an adult, that policing disproportionately impacts those communities as well. So that's data that we have. And based on that data, and based on sort of the national conversation around people of color in particular who have suffered at the hands of police officers, there was a call to remove school resource officers from schools. Has the school resource officer ever been involved in an incident or a reported incident that would involve that? And we've had a number of school resource officers, so we're not talking in particular person. No, this was not a conversation about an individual police officer or even really about the Montpelier Police Department. It's not really a conversation about, this person did this bad thing, although we have seen many examples of that nationally, of this person did this bad thing. But when one individual acts badly, it makes us sort of turn inward as a society and say, is there something going on there that could potentially improve? And so the way I see it is, the major conversation circles around implicit bias, which is just something that we all are raised with. I was just trying to say, if you're gonna tackle that, you're doing a Yeoman's job. So we all have implicit bias. It's something that I think should be looked at when we're looking at systems like policing. How does implicit bias potentially impact policing? Does implicit bias play a role in the recent types of violence that have happened against people of color in our country? And so it's definitely a question that's been raised, but not about any person in particular at the Montpelier Police Department. What did your committee recommend? So our committee decided not to make one recommendation, one way or the other about the school resource officer. What we did do is we compiled everything that we had learned from a variety of stakeholders, the city, the police department, parents and guardians, teachers, faculty, staff, the admin team, community members at large, students, and so we had surveyed all these different stakeholders. We had conducted a lot of interviews. We reached out to all of the organizations that I mentioned. We reached out to other schools in Vermont who have created systems and have systems in place in the absence of an SRO to ask how are they doing things. We had Libby Bonesteel present to us about the current use of the school resource officer. And at the end of the process, we presented the school board with sort of everything that we learned. And we did end up putting that into categories of considered recommendations to keep the SRO, considered recommendations to eliminate the position, and then sort of other information to keep in mind when making the decision. Now, some of that material is online right now on the school website, isn't it? All of that material should be available, including sort of the raw data that we collected from surveys. So if someone were interested in seeing this, go over to the Montpelier Roxbury School District site and go to the board. Yes. In terms of recommendations, the school board ultimately discussed this and decided to go with the route of eliminating the position. Correct. What happened to that funding that went to that position from the school side? Well, right now it's been primarily eliminated from the budget. And so the step two, our committee had sort of a two-part charge. The first part of the charge was to present the committee with recommendations around the school resource officer position. And then the second part of the charge is to take a broader look at how could the Montpelier Roxbury School System improve our systems of discipline and in particular through the lens of our diversity, equity and inclusion policy. So that's the work that we'll be doing. I'm doing. Yeah, starting next Tuesday. And when will that, in theory, report in? Well, in theory, at the end of March. So there's a chance that this will be implemented for the following school year? Yeah, I mean, I see it as more, most likely what will come out of that committee work will be sort of values statements from the community about what we value in terms of school discipline and through the lens of the diversity, equity and inclusion policy. And then maybe some broader recommendations to the admin team of, you know, we hope that you will look into this or we hope that you might provide professional development around this or we hope, you know, it'll be more broad strokes. And then it will be up to the admin team, you know, when to implement those and how to. Will the committee be making recommendations to the board or is it the board's job to try and set up metrics of figuring out whether this works? I think that will be up to the board. It's the committee's job to make the recommendations and then it will be up to the board and the admin team, you know, how we proceed from there. So there could be a variety of avenues that that takes, you know, it could be that the admin team just takes the recommendations and starts to implement them or it could mean that the board would like to establish a policy around a piece of the recommendation. I'm not sure how. But would there be a metric to see whether what we have is, what we have right now is doing this. When we change it, it's doing that. Is this superior to this? I'm not sure what metrics will end up implementing or using. I can't see the future on that one. Well, if you can't see the future, I do see the future and the future is on town meeting day when you're running for office against no one. So I can posit in the future that you will win. And I'll also posit in the future that I hope with all the absentee ballot stuff that's going on right now and how easy it is, I would hope that everyone watching this actually gets to take their vote, make their voice heard, make sure that other people have their voices heard. You've got to take this seriously because we are a small town, but our lifeblood is in terms of a small town that's engaged, a small town that cares about this. And if you care, watch the other shows there.  And I thank you for watching this and thank you very much, Emma, for the time you've given us and for the time that you've spent on your committee zooming. Yeah, thank you for doing this as like a public service for our whole town. Thank you for watching.


Whose voice is the rating the story of your life at the moment? And are you okay with that voice? Whose voice is it? Is it a parent? Is it culture? Is it regret? Is it shame? Is it a spouse? Is it a boss, a partner? Whose voice is the rating the story of your life? And are you okay with that? If not, you need to kick them out of the narration seat in your mind or take the pen off them. You take it back. You write it.  No one else. You are the writer of your story. No one else.


Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Dan Blundell from Nano One Materials. How are you today? Great. Thanks. Appreciate being here. Well, I am so excited. This to me seems like your most disruptive news to date. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to try and sound cool here and say you've just rolled out your NMC-811. Is that what it is? A single crystal? This is where I need your help, Dan. Tell me about your news and what this means and why everyone's calling me and saying, Dan's doing it. He's going to get us a million miles on our electric vehicles. There's a lot to unpack there. But yeah, you know what, NMC-811-811 is of course just the ratio of nickel man used to cobalt. It's a sign of where the industry wants to take these materials. They want to lower the amount of cobalt for all of the supply chain concern reasons. They want to drive up the amount of nickel because that improves the energy density of the materials. But in doing so, these materials become less and less stable. They actually just don't last as long. You don't get as many charge cycles out of them. And it's the stability, the durability that's really kind of holding back the commercialization of these materials. So, our efforts on NMC-811 are to improve the durability. And the first thing that happens is that these materials tend to fall apart in the battery when you're charging and discharging them because they react with the chemistry. So you put a coating around those materials to prevent those side reactions from making the battery deteriorate. But in a more conventional cathode, actually the cathodes are kind of expanding and contracting as you charge them. So you're stuffing lithium ions in, it makes the volume expand, and then it contracts as you move the lithium ions in and out. And that causes the stress on this outer coating and it cracks and falls apart. And as soon as it cracks, of course, you start to have the insides of these particles exposed to the side reactions. And so you have to solve not only the coating problem, you have to solve the expansion and contraction problem. And that's where the single crystal comes in. Single crystals don't really, it's one crystal with no kind of grain boundaries or anything. It's not an agglomeration of a whole bunch of particles that can fall apart as they expand and contract. It's one single crystal. And by making it into a single crystal, you can actually protect the outer coating. So it's the combination of those two things that's really important. So our news was about showing how, even with a single crystal, there is degradation. And if you coat that single crystal, where that news shows that the cathode material lasts four times longer. And that's really, obviously, that's very significant and it shows that our coating is effective at preventing these side reactions from happening. So how disruptive is this news really, Dan? What does this really mean for, you know, those of us involved in the electric vehicle market? Well, you know, there's lots of people. So coatings aren't anything new. Coating the cathode to protect it aren't anything new. The key thing here is that by having the single crystal and the coating and having an effective way to make the single crystals. So again, single crystals, the idea of a single crystal cathode has been around for a while, but the conventional methods for making them are very expensive.  And we've developed a way to do that. So our crystals form very readily in the furnace and they self-coat in the furnace so you don't have to have a secondary coating process. So we've simplified the process. It's less complex and because the crystals form quickly, we get an inexpensive way of making them that doesn't have the downside of spending too long in the furnace. And that's actually really the key thing here is that combining those, the ability to make the single crystals cost effectively and coat them simultaneously. And then it provides all those protections that I talked about a few minutes ago. Okay. So if I understand you correct and all of us shareholders are out here, we're like, okay, we're hanging on every word. This decreases the cost of the electric battery, correct? Actually, by making the material more durable, which means it's going to fall apart more, much more slowly inside the battery, you're going to get many more charges out of it. The electric battery that goes into a car is somewhat restricted by the durability of the materials. If the material is not very durable, then you have to make the battery a bit bigger so that when you charge it, you're not as charging it as aggressively. Or you make the battery a bit bigger because you have to make it last longer to fit the warranty. A more durable battery allows you to either drive a million miles, which is important to taxi drivers and buses and utilities and such, or charge it very much faster because now because the battery material is more durable, it can take a more aggressive charge or ultimately drive it a little bit further every day. So discharge it a little bit deeper, add a few more miles onto the daily range of the battery. So the key is that the durability allows any one of these possibilities to happen because it opens up this kind of envelope, this window to the battery designer to make a better, cheaper, longer range, faster charging, longer driving battery. Any one of those possibilities becomes a reality if you can make ultimately this battery more durable. Well, Dan, as always, it's a real pleasure and again, congratulations on your single crystal news. It's very exciting. Yeah. Thank you very much. Appreciate being here.


But wonderful to be connecting with young people from all sorts of different countries and I've heard a lot about Elk Pro I understand it's in the top 50 schools in India. So congratulations for the leadership school at Elk Pro but also for this panthea project. I'm also delighted that we to school in whopping where my mother's ancestors come from and so my great grandfather was a senior sergeant and the police of what thing. Look, I guess this is for me it's a great honour. I have a special friendship and love of India and as you've just heard some of it I've been to India on 11 occasions have been to many, most of the major cities Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and so on and also holidayed in in Rajasthan. One of the things that I love about it is India's history, its culture, its music, its film, and also, of course, it's marvellous food. But one of the things that's also terrific is that it's given me an opportunity to make extraordinary friendships and that's what's panthea is all about. It's about collaboration. It's about how we are interconnected. And it's also about friendships. I'm very happy to talk about Bollywood later on if there's any questions and also about my appearance at the Chennai stadium, where I played against Chris Srikanth, the former played cricket, the former captain of the Indian cricket team. It was great, great fun. Today, in exploring the concept of Panjee, I'm going to particularly focus on the environment which is an area that I've been involved in but I thought first of all it might help. If I kind of explained how I got into the position that I am in terms of working on climate change around the world. I was born in London. I was born in Southeast London at the age of I didn't come from a rich background, quite the opposite, you know, and so come from a very working class background. My parents made the decision when I was nine years of age to emigrate to migrate to a new country, which was New Zealand incredibly beautiful part of the Commonwealth of Nations. I stayed there through my high school days and went to university they then became a political reporter, but I was passionate about politics. I was passionate about great causes. And in back in 1972, France was testing its nuclear weapons, the atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs in the South Pacific, polluting the atmosphere with radiation, polluting the seas with rate radiation. And they did so because they, they, some of their colonies were in South, the South Pacific, including Murrow at all. A whole, a small group of us, mainly young people decided that we were going to stop the French from exploding nuclear weapons in the South Pacific. People laughed at us like how could basically a bunch of university students stop what a superpower then, and one with atomic weapons from, from testing in the atmosphere and how could we as just ordinary citizens, 20 year old do this. What we did is that we with others got together and we sent a boat across the sea 3000 miles to sit under the site where the nuclear bomb was being strung up from a balloon at 1000 feet above. Because we knew that if the friend we got the media involved, but if the French exploded that bomb that it would kill the people on board more than kill them, it would just be obliteration. So by doing this, we brought the world's attention to what was going on in someone else's backyard that is where a superpower was polluting our planet. One, an event happened that the French we were in international waters, so we weren't breaking any laws. It's important to obey the law.  They bashed one very, very badly. And then they captured. They captured the four people on board and the boat away. Fortunately, one of the young women was taking photos of the bashing up of people the illegal boarding and everything else on a tiny camera. And then when we came to Tahiti, the French government put out a statement saying that they had rescued a boat in distress. And then when we came out and said that this was not true that they were illegally bordered they were beaten up. They said that we were lying. Fortunately, when they were eventually released and this, the people accusing us of lying and were the prime ministers and presidents of France. Fortunately, when our people were released and went came and came back to their base. They had the photos because the young woman Ann Marie Horn had switched photos in the camera and the other one was detained. Those were released to the world and it showed that the French president and prime minister had lied to the world. That caused the Australian government and the New Zealand government to come out in support of what we were doing. New Zealand sent an unarmed warship into the zone and they took the front France to the International Court of Justice at the hay. And then one and it banned they ended up with banning French from testing atomic bombs in the atmosphere so a small bunch of young people, not much older than you stopped a superpower and we formed a group that was into becoming Greenpeace, and it's now doing things around the world. When I finished university I went to into journalism became a political reporter eventually I was offered a job in Australia as the political advisor media advisor to a very charismatic premier called Don Dunstan I was only 24 at the time. And from him and others. I learned a couple of important lessons I wanted to tell you about today. Totally the importance of a good education, secondly the importance of mentors, those who are older than than you older than me at the time, who ended up being guiding spirits to me throughout my career, you can always learn and also discovered something else that if you really want something badly enough that there are views, very few barriers that can stop you achieving your goals and ambitions. If you're prepared to work hard enough and try hard enough. I talk about people talk about being commitment, but there's also resilience that means standing up when when you're knocked down, never being feeling defeated. And then finally, an issue that I think is really important is persistence keep turning up keep going if you keep going, you'll you'll get there. And you can make a difference in the world. And the other thing that I learned is that the world is often divided between those who want to be, and those who want to do. Those who want to be include their people want to be rich want to be famous want to be powerful. But the real heroes are those who want to do those who want to make a difference and provide opportunities for others, and to embrace the global village the pangea concept that we're celebrating and talking about today. These are the real heroes. I then decided having worked for lots of different politicians prime ministers and premiers that I would basically wanted to have a go myself I was getting sick of writing speeches for others. So I thought it was time I wrote speeches for myself. So I got elected to parliament in South Australia, New Zealand, and then became a young minister for employment and further education and Aboriginal affairs and later on became the leader of the Labor Party for 17 years in my state. And what we did during that time that we're in government. When I was premier was do some good things. We basically became an international leader in renewable energy, we wanted to show, not just our own state but other states of Australia to be achieved. And one of the things that we had zero renewable energy when we started. It's now 60% of the state's electricity comes from renewable energy and by 2030 100%. And so that means that that we're no longer dependent on coal fired power stations, we're no longer dependent on on oil or gas with fossil fuels. Instead, we're relying overwhelmingly on wind power and solar power. We also did some other things we were very strong on the environment massively expanding national parks and environmental protection areas, including marine parks to conserve the breeding grounds of fish. We tackled important issues like mental health and homelessness we doubled our expenditure on health, and we also got our economy moving. And as I mentioned at the start, that at the start of this process that we, you know, we are interconnected, because the greatest example of how interconnected we are, are our oceans and our seas. It's the lifeblood of our environment and our economy. I'm from Australia where we're a big island, you know, very, very big island the biggest of the lot. And 99% of our exports are dispatched to destinations around the world by ship across the ocean. The shipping industry is in fact responsible for carrying 90% of world trade and so without shipping without our oceans and that being interconnected. That we wouldn't be able to see the export of food or cars machinery iron and steel, and there are 50,000 cargo ships that cross our oceans connecting us. But the oceans are important in other ways as a source of food, fish and seafood are a basic component in the diets of billions of people around the world about 100 million tons of fish are caught commercially, nearly as many again from agricultural agriculture or fish farms and our seas and coastlines are important for tourism and recreation. So why do we treat our oceans as if they were dumping grounds as sewers, rather than our precious lifeblood. We've been treating our oceans as if they're infinite resource that we can do anything to that we can insult in any ways. And of course, and we think that they could quickly recover. So David Attenborough one of my heroes, the world famous naturalists has pointed out that we now face the consequences of our actions, because the seas are warming, and they're rising and becoming more acid. The United Nations has said that by the end of this century we could see three feet or a one meter rise in sea levels. Well, it's only three feet that would cause devastation for billions of people who live in low coastal areas, as well as the 65 million people on small island who live on small island developing states, their whole lives livelihoods are at stake. These people will be especially at risk from a combination of flooding, extreme weather events, cyclones and storms of the nature that used to be seen once in 100 years, but from a few years from now, by 2050 will happen once a year. And this will make vast regions of the world uninhabitable, will see the end of people, the destruction of people's homes and infrastructure like school produce large numbers of refugees with huge economic problems as a result. And there is another problem increasing acidification of the ocean. And meanwhile, plastic is one of the greatest challenges facing the world's oceans a few years ago, again, so David Attenborough reported that more than 150 million tons of plastic is drifting the world's oceans causing the death of 1 million birds and 100,000 sea mammals that's as well as countless fish around the world. And he produced this film called Blue Planet. And one of the most moving scenes was that of, of a beautiful albatross the world's biggest, biggest bird that was seen feeding that the albatross was seen feeding their chicks a diet of plastic. Charles, who I'm a great admirer of says that we're doing that what we're doing to the planet make makes him fear that we're no longer a rational civilization that are instead driven by some strange economic ideology. I call it greed short term thinking, the exact opposite of pangia and the concept of our global village. So let me tell you a couple of initiatives and then I want to talk about things that you might want to do that we did in South Australia. In 2009, we were the first in Australia, first state in Australia to introduce a ban on plastic bags of the kind that they use in supermarkets non renewable single use. In South Australia, my state has a big land area three times bigger than Maharashtra, but with a very, very small population by comparison, but even our ban stopped 400 million plastic bags each year polluting the environment, and that would have built up it would have been billions by now. And so these bags, of course, if without the ban, these bags would have contributed to greenhouse gases to clogging landfill dumps to littering streets getting into drains into waterways like rivers the sea killing wildlife.  The great news is, is always have faith in the people. 80% of the people of South Australia strongly supported our ban, and we're proud to go to the shops carrying cloth bags. And now, more than 10 years later, one by one, other states in Australia are doing the same thing. We're also solar powered our airport, our parliament, our agricultural showgrounds convention center. We put panels on the roofs of countless schools. We solar powered parts solar power other buildings like the museums and art galleries, and now almost one in three homes in Adelaide, our capital city is solar powered. We planted three million trees and a series of urban forests throughout the city of Adelaide in schools, roadways parks we got people involved celebrities politicians school kids, elderly people leaders of different religions. This was about making the city more beautiful but also cleaning the air, and also calling our streets. You know, there are other things that I think people can do, which is, and that's really why I wanted today to talk about what you could do, which I think could really be helpful where you could make a difference, and where you could actually underpin the Pangea movement and be an example to the rest of the world. So what could you do a lot. Make sure that your school is the greenest of any school that you've that anybody has heard of in your local region or area. Work with your teachers to plant trees and shrubs and fruit trees, particularly which have other benefits. And also, of course, you know, we know that the trees are the lungs of our planet. So in addition to fruit trees make sure that there are trees that are indigenous to your local area, and from growing them from seed. So I think that you should talk to your teachers about how you can make your schools more energy efficient, which is like turning things off like computers and lights when you're not not around. How you can embrace recycling, how you can change the way you do things where you're not only making a difference for your environment, but for all our environment. And that means things like a band making sure that you don't use plastic, cut back the use of plastic in your school home and in your personal use. Remember that fresh food is best. Don't buy junk food wrapped in plastic containers. Avoid plastic bags at all costs. Don't use plastic knives plates forks spoons or plastic cups. And if you're offered a plastic bag in a shop say no thank you, and also ask your schools whether you could have a vegetable garden at the school I did when I was a kid in school in New Zealand we had a vegetable garden. And we're allowed to take the vegetables home. And my son went to a school in South Australia where they had this fantastic vegetable garden and the school which was a small primary school up to the age of 11 or 12 concentrated on being an environmental school. Recycle don't live in a three away throw away economy. Work with your teachers at your school to see what can be recycled and work with your local town or village to recycle work with you and also make sure that you get the message about cutting back plastic use to stop communities looking like rubbish dumps. What pressure on politicians. This is and so I can say this as a former politician I'm sure David will agree. It's really important to write to the local MPs local mayor your members of parliament representing cities and states and talk to them about what you're doing at the local level. Yes, and but what you would like them to do invite them to once you've made your school a pangea school committed to the environment committed to sustainability. Make sure you invite them to come and see what's possible elsewhere. And before opening up for questions. Remember, as I told you at the start, a small group of young people stop to powerful nation at nation, exploding nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, stopping them polluting the world from from from someone else's backyard. So whenever anyone tells you that it is impossible to do things. Don't believe them. Everything is possible, at least a major advance is possible if you try hard enough work hard enough, and there's nothing that can stop you to better your life, the lives of your neighbors the life of your family the lives of people in your local area. So remember, the motivation and the world for the better. Make your school, make your village and inspiration for others by showing what can be achieved. Remember, you've got an even smallest ways. Great power, the power of your example. One of the things I wanted to say to us in really important to treat each other well to treat each other with respect, even if you disagree with people. And also, that respect must come about, no matter what other people's religions or backgrounds or economic circumstances are. You know, I'm really inspired these days by the young woman who is the Prime Minister of New Zealand. She has made a point of not only being committed to the environment, committed to sustainability, but also to reconciliation of bringing people of all backgrounds together, never submitting to pressure. If you ever hear a politician trying to divide not unite, don't vote for them when you grow when you're grown up and able to vote, because you know that deep down they are fake and are trying to play people off against each other for their own advantage. So in closing and inviting questions. I have great confidence and faith in your future, because for years, people have been saying, listen to the wisdom of your elders and that's true. But it's also these days really important to listen to the wisdom of young people. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Mike, what an inspiring talk and some really amazing takeaways for all of us. I particularly think that that that you just said that you know we inspire each other, the fact about, you know, having a school that's like an inspiration for each other, the environment, but there are there were just so many key takeaways from this entire talk. I invite our, you know, guests in the audiences in on the zoom meet and on Facebook to putting questions for Mr Mike ran if there is any you can raise hands on zoom, or you can put in your questions on the chat. Of course, Mr Anand Prasad Anand, your domain completely please help me moderate the Q&A Anand Prasad the founder and managing director of skills for education and our co host for this event. Thank you so much for the wonderful introduction Sugandha ma'am and Mike it was an absolute pleasure listening to you talking about the importance of environmental sustainability the importance of fighting for the environment. I think that absolutely nothing is impossible and the importance of global unity in many ways right from politics to other streams of life. I think you've really enlightened us with this wonderful speech and we obviously couldn't have asked for anything better at the closing ceremony of a conference that is one that has gone off so wonderfully well. We have a lot of questions and honestly a lot of questions are coming in via Facebook to we'll allow a student to inaugurate this question and answer session with you. Go ahead. The floor is yours. Thank you so much sir. Thank you so much Mike. I love the your speed so much I think it was very inspiring for me, especially with those thoughts where you know we should know who to work for and we should know where our interest lies. My question basically revolves around the fact that our generation we care about the environment very much and you know we're very strongly we put our foot very strongly forward, and we hold our opinions to the very extreme manner. My question is basically how do we make sure that while we amalgamate these technological advancements that we're going through as at the same time protecting our environment and making sure that the world still remains for you know the future generations to come and come. It's a very good question and actually it's interesting because a lot of the things that I told you about including our embrace of renewable energy in South Australia was strongly opposed not just by our political opponents, but people that you know the media and others came out and said that we would wreck the economy the whole range of things even the plastic bag bag I was told was going to wreck the economy and all this sort of stuff. And that's always the resistance part of it but now what's and that's been the worldwide view against renewable energy and because the fossil fuel industry oil and gas and petroleum have been working in many ways like the cigarette companies tobacco companies of the past when the the movement came about because of the problems we're causing lung cancer which many denied for decades. And so there's always resistance because because they're thinking about the agreed. But now what's happened is that renewable energy has become bankable renewable energy has become profitable. It's become cheaper to produce energy and electricity as technology technology has advanced. And so that means that the giant pension funds that have trillions of dollars and now putting their investments as well as the banks rapidly into renewable and sustainable futures and investments. So when something becomes bankable, all of the people that resisted renewable energy and now thinking, oh, hang on, we can make more money out of this. So what we're seeing in the last four or five years is this incredible them towards investing in renewables with giant banks and others now saying that they won't put money and won't invest in fossil fuel technologies. Let me just raise one person Prince Charles Prince Charles has absolutely led this campaign. He's called it the great reset about in in sustainability and, you know, it's pretty difficult position, the Prince Wales but is played in my view I know that he works with the banks and so on has played a major role. So my view is that environment and technology are actually joining together because one, it's going to end up being cheaper, easier, as well as playing a major role in reducing our carbon emissions. Thank you so much for that answer. Tessie I am sure that answers your question as well as a range of other facets associated with the question. Gary, a dear collaborator once again and co-host from Burping High School Gary, would you like to ask a question. Thank you, Anand. I just wanted to say, Mike, I agree with everybody that's spoken after you've spoken there that really was inspirational. If you don't mind me saying you remind me of my, my first CEO as an exec head up in Manchester and the north of England to have three kind of mantra background kind of principles to the way we ran, which was rather large organization and she talked about integrity, passion and hard work and you've got them in buckets. So thank you, Mike, for inspiring us all today. You've shared so much. I was nodding furiously away and smiling and enjoying and thinking about my next assembly when we returned to school after the UK lockdown in terms of our priorities as a school. If you have one sentence to share the highest priority priority tip for young people, not only in the UK, but everybody here and everywhere across the world, what would it be to chase a career of great success? I think getting back to those three principles of, you know, for years as a young person, people said, you know, it's all about commitment. And that's true, but it's only part of the story. Persistence, making yourself indispensable. Someone said those who turn up prevail, basically volunteer to do things. So commitment, assistance, keep at it, don't get, you know, keep at it, just keep going. And then finally resilience because I've seen all in achieving these things along the way there's lots of setbacks, there's lots of disappointments. But if you're resilient enough, if you believe enough, not only in your cause, but in yourself, then that resilience means that when you get knocked over, you bounce back, you've learned from it, and then you win. You know, and so, and, and the most important thing too, I think, is to make sure that if you can combine your own personal ambitions with doing good in the world, by making the life of others better, then you're going to live fulfilling life, and you are going to be something. Thank you, Mike. Thank you so much, Mike, for that answer. And thank you for your question, Gary. Before I move on to the question from Svetlana, there is a question that we have received from some of our viewers on the Facebook live stream and I would like to ask one of those questions, it's an interesting question Mike. The question is that in this consumerist world, wouldn't it really be a challenge to steer the youth towards sustainability in your opinion. People often say that, but you know, and I guess that's one of the things that I learned from our plastic bag ban, that the people because of the consumer culture would get really irritated. I mean, I'm not supposed to reveal what goes on in cabinet meetings, but I can tell you that a number of my closest friends in cabinet were saying I think this is going to be really unpopular the shopping centers don't want it. This is going to, you know, cause real problems, there'll be confusion, and so on. And the media were waiting for that confusion and went out on the day on the first day where we flipped over to you can't, you know, no more plastic bags you have to take your own bag and get your groceries and so on. The media came back and they were interviewing people who said this is fantastic. People like being a world leader or a national leader, they feel proud of themselves, their state and their nation. But when we did some polling on it, we found out I told you 80% support from people across the board, but the support from young people was 90%. So I think that it's all about explaining things people do on, you know, often do things on face value, and don't because you've always done it that way. And so I think that if you explain to people and make it a cause that's driven by young people. That's the key, rather than old fellows like me telling people what to do if it's driven if it comes from within. If it's youth leadership, it means that the other young people are inspired. And it's the same as what we did, you know, back in 50 years ago with 48 years ago with the Greenpeace campaign. I told you about it was driven by young people, but ended up with 80% of New Zealanders supporting a group of young people who were essentially protesters, taking on what people thought was an impossible cause. It's all about pride, and it's about pride in doing things and changing things for the better. Thank you so much for that answer I couldn't agree more with you, Mike. I think this also brings us to a very important 21st century skill in empathy, the importance of empathy not sympathizing with the environment but empathizing with all of humankind and the importance of feeling for a cause and driving it forward with leadership qualities, and a zest and fervor that will inspire others around you. So Atlanta, that brings me to your question. Hello everyone. Good morning to me. Good afternoon to some and evening to others. Mike was incredibly inspiring listening to you. We have some similarities. I'm from Brazil I work in private school here in Brazil, and I am very, very enthusiastic about the pandemic movement. One of the real issues is something very present in my life and I, I take great pride in, in, in initiatives that we take in our schools as well that we want to move on. And, you know, it's, it's more of a comment rather than a question itself. You talked about the ban of disposable plastic bags. It has generated such a great impact all over the world to all countries that have implemented that. And I just wanted to say that, you know, there is a movement here in Brazil that has greatly inspired me because I think it is very much so it's very important, which is what you, you were saying last to think about what, what kinds of issues are you passionate about, and then set about to find solutions. One movements that we have here is that we went beyond just the ban of plastic bags in supermarkets here, and we have created, we have set out to create a bio degradable model, which is the beautiful prints of local artists, and therefore also not only supporting artistic movements, right, but also making it viable for them to get a monetary participation in it. It's small, but since it's, it's a highly sustainable business model in terms of business, it has created some very interesting movements regarding that as well. So every six months, there are a huge collection of different plastic bags which have been, which have been done by local artists every state has its own collections, different supermarkets have their own collections. They are beautiful, they are really beautiful to hold, they are very cheap, they are very, very durable, and they're environmentally friendly. And I think when we start to pressure to put these pressure on to society and also on to politicians to make the to pass these laws, we also push our creativity somehow. So we have seen here the ban of plastic straws, which have been replaced by avocado pits made straws. So I think this is also a very important aspect to bring to schools, because I think there are lots of students that have ideas and that would love and would be very inspired to have challenges like this to develop. I would love to hear your thoughts on that as well. And thank you. Thank you so much. And I think that's terrific idea about also incorporating art into it. And I really hope that others will take up what you're doing that makes eminent sense. One of the things that, and it wasn't my initiative, although we improved it later, but the guy that I went to Australia to work for, Premier Don Dunstan. He brought in a recycling scheme, which was that, that, you know, there was a real problem around Australia with people drinking out of cans, cola, whatever it was, beer cans and so on, or bottles, and then throwing them into the litter stream or you know just throwing them down, or throwing up in, in, in rubbish bins along streets and so on. So what he did in 1976 is say he put a price on each of the five cents extra. And it meant that people either, and then I changed it to 10 cents. So every time someone picks up a bottle, they take it to a recycling center, and they get 10 cents for it. They stimulate a multimillion dollar recycling industry, rather than things that are discarded, incredibly clean streets and roadways and environment. And then we added other things in like milk cartons made of cardboard so essentially things that were containers for drinks, could all be returned you've got 10 cents. And what happened is that you took it back you refunded the 10 cents. So it meant that people like the Boy Scouts, the Girl Guides, the Rotarians and others would send people out into the streets, finding these bottles in giant rubbish bins and so on and taking to the streets and they're raising fundraising for charities. So again, you've got an industry out of it. You, there was no change in the number of people drinking so the industry said we'll destroy our business didn't. And that's so over the years it's got better and better. And now that was 1976. Now other states are just starting to do it. It's really important to be a leader and what you're doing and what you've told me is real leadership. Just, and it's really good you're talking to others because I think that if you can explain how it works you'll find that others will take it on but the art connection is wonderful. Thank you so much for that Mike and thank you so much for that wonderful question and sharing another very interesting facet of Brazil yesterday is what Lana talked about how music is integrated into education. You have talked about how, you know, environmental sustainability is being incorporated into overall culture. I think these are great learnings for us across the globe. Thank you so much for that.


All merchants, unless they have been publicly prohibited beforehand, shall be able to go out of and come into England safely and securely, and stay and travel throughout England, as well by land as by water, for buying and selling by the ancient and right customs free from all evil tolls, except in time of war and if they are of the land that is at war with us. And if such are found in our land at the beginning of a war, they shall be attached without injury to their persons or goods until we, or our chief judiciary, know how merchants of a land are treated who are found in the land at war with us when war broke out. And if ours are safe there, the others shall be safe in our land.