月: 2021年6月

When I was a kid I loved dinosaurs. I thought dinosaurs were super cool. I had a book about dinosaurs and I knew a lot of the names of dinosaurs. Of course all my friends were also interested in dinosaurs. We always talked about what dinosaur was the king of all, and we often drew pictures of one dinosaur eating another dinosaur, or eating people, or eating everything.

In Canada scientists could find many different kinds of dinosaurs. The land is very big, and because the area is very cold many dinosaur bones were discovered in the earth. There were T-Rex bones, brontosaurs bones, triceratops bones, and many bones that were mysterious and unknown.

I was very excited when scientists discovered a new dinosaur. They named it the “Albertasaurus”. Alberta is the name of where I lived so it was very cool that the scientists gave the name for our area of Canada. At that same time a very huge and beautiful dinosaur museum was made. It is called the Tyrell Dinosaur Museum and it is one of the biggest dinosaur museums in the world. Of course I went there many times.

When I was a kid I always believed that the T-Rex was the biggest and most dangerous dinosaur of all dinosaurs. He was huge. He had so many teeth. He was unstoppable. But, several years later scientists found more dinosaurs, and some were even bigger than the T-Rex. Scientists discovered a huge dinosaur called the “Spinosaurus”. It is a huge dinosaur that looks like an alligator. It was much bigger than the T-Rex. I was a little disappointed. Then, in South Africa, more scientists found another huge dinosaur called the “Gigantosaurus”, and it was also bigger than my favorite T-Rex. I was even more disappointed.

I lived with my disappointment about T-Rex no longer being the biggest dinosaur. Yes, it was not easy, but somehow I learned that it is okay when something you think is true is later not true. That is what science can do. Science will discover new things. Our ideas now may change later when we know more science.

So, you can understand my deep shock when, in 1986, in Argentina, scientists found a dinosaur that was super huge. It was found in the country of Argentina, and this dinosaur was unbelievably big. The T-Rex is about 8 tons, but this new Argentina dinosaur was thought to be about 100 tons, and that is more than twelve times the size! The new giant of giants was named Argenitasaurus.

In the news this week, we learn of more dinosaur news. In Australia, a very new area for dinosaur research a new giant dinosaur has been discovered. The first bones were found in 2007 but more and more of these giant dinosaurs are found. This is Australia’s biggest dinosaur and it is named Australotitan. The size of the Australotitan was very big. It was over 6.5 meters tall and 30 meters long. That means that it is as long as a basketball court. The Australotitan joins the top 15 biggest dinosaurs of the world.

This kind of science is very exciting and very interesting. Science is a wonderful thing to study and to enjoy. Science is something like a way for us to understand a mystery. Long ago, people would look at the sky or at nature and try to understand things. Why was the sky dark at night? How does the sun move? How does the moon move? How old is our earth? Where do people come from? Why do we have eyes and ears, and a nose? How did we grow over time? These are very important questions, and Science helps us to understand the earth more deeply.

The most interesting things about Science is that it can change. Science can keep moving forward and if we have more information we can change our ideas and our feelings. Long ago people believed that our earth was flat like a plate. People believed that bacteria were evil spirits. People believed that the sun moved around the earth. But Science teaches us more, and from more information we can change our opinions.

We may think something to be 100%, like when I believed that the T-Rex was the biggest of all dinosaurs. But when we get new information and new science we can have a chance to grow and change our thinking. It is good to have an opinion, but we must have an open mind. Science keeps our minds open. Science is the study of questions, and the discovery of truth. Please listen very carefully to your science teachers in class today. They have so much to share with you, and also ask them questions too. The study of science can give us all a deeper understanding and a deeper respect for our world, and for each other too.

Good luck in your Science classes today!

Usually, I am very glad that I am from Canada. My mother and father were from Europe, but I was born in Canada. My home in Canada is the city of Vancouver. It’s a beautiful place. Students from Otemae have visited my hometown. I am always so happy when I hear from Otemae students that they had a wonderful time in my country. I am very proud that they have met good Canadian people, had different food, had new experiences, and had many chances to use and to speak English.

But today I am not so proud to be a Canadian.

I don’t know if you read the news very much but there is a very dark story about Canada in the media today. This week there was a very sad discovery. The dead bodies of 215 children who were all Native Indians to Canada were found behind a church school. The dead children are from many years ago and they were all students at a church school that was a Canadian government school too. It is a deeply shocking thing.

When European people came to Canada about one hundred years ago they made schools for Native Indian children. The children were pulled from their mothers and stayed only at the schools. The teachers of the school were from the church. The teachers were supposed to teach and take care of these children, but they did not. Many children had terrible experiences of violence and abuse. Many children did not have proper food or medical care. Now we know that many children died or killed at these schools.

I am so shocked about this news I think that I cannot explain my thinking very well. This terrible thing is very hard to understand. Small children were taken from their mothers and fathers, and then they die alone in these schools. How can this happen? How can this happen in Canada?

This is not the Canada that I know. This is not the Canada that I love.

It is a very dark part of the history of my country. I cannot say that I am proud of the history of Canada. I cannot say that everything in Canada is great.

But there are still some things about my country that are good. There are many good people in my country. There are many beautiful places in Canada. The air is clean. The water is clean. There is music and there is food and there are so many good things today in my country.

I have to try to have two very different ideas in my mind together. I must understand that the history of Canada has very dark and terrible parts. I must also understand that there are many good people and beautiful places too. These two things are opposite, but it is possible to keep two opposite ideas in the human mind at the same time.

The study of history is very important for everyone. Dark parts of our history do not give us identity today. The past is the past. Today is today. We must learn about the mistakes and crimes of the past. We learn about the dark so that we can move our country to the light.

If we pretend or believe that a dark history is not real we will make a big mistake. If we say things like, “Oh, that was so long ago. It is not important”, or, “That is some kind of fake news, some kind of fake history”, we will make some new trouble. If we try to forget or ignore the dark part of the past, we will make the same mistakes again in the future.

In Canada I believe that many people are very angry and very shocked about these terrible crimes against children. I am a Canadian and I am deeply unhappy about this. As a Canadian I must do whatever I can to help make my county better, and stronger, and more intelligent. I think that one of the best things I can do for the future of my country is to promote and to teach about history. We must remember our mistakes of the past. We must make a good lesson from the dark so that we can communicate better, understand other people better, and to learn about peace and cooperation.

Education and reading history will make our world better, and make us smarter for the future.