Bernadette Grantham was the definition of noise pollution. Anyone who happened to look at Claudine at that moment would see the violent wince that she made. The Slytherin hated loud noises. Why couldn’t everyone just speak quietly? Tut tutting softly, she side glance Heath as he gave his answer. Wow. He certainly knew a lot about that part of the topic. Her head turned more in his direction as his hair began to hide his face. Why? Wa she embarrassed about his answer? Claudine reached over with her closest elbow and nudged him lightly. “There’s no reason to hide your face,’’ she whispered, hoping to encourage him to be confident.

Huh? Cow burps and farts contributed to pollution? Was Schmoe making that one up? She’d have to research on her own to be sure. But it seemed that they were getting started on the activity. Needless to say Claudine lit up when she heard they were doing something art related.

Claudine went to collect some supplies for herself, and in the process, wrinkled her nose a few times. “Professor? Something smells awful.’’ She threw Schmoe a suspicious look. It was possible he had let one rip. If so, what had he been eating? Hurriedly, she collected her supplies then moved back to her seat.

On a huge piece of light yellow cardboard, she traced out the words ‘Did you know that fireworks are dangerous to your pets?’ Pets were the targeted group because she felt that if persons realised their familiars could be harmed, they were more likely to pay attention. From there, she hoped that same care would branch off to other animals in general. Once those words were stenciled out, she proceeded to fill them will colours using her coloured pencils. Claudine made sure to use bright, bold colours so that the words could be eye catching.

Immediately below the words, fireworks were drawn: mundane ones and ones in the shapes of dragons to represent magical fireworks. Had this not been Muggle Studies, a bit of magic would have been used to make the fireworks move. Shrugging, Claudine went ahead to add jazz to the fireworks by using a variety of coloured glitter to make them pop.

The girl was pretty pleased with how things were turning out so far.

Ugh ... a first year, the very first person offering to be his partner is a first year. Clearly Blake didn't have any friends .. clearly .... But then she offered to draw .. maybe this was a good choice after all! "Sure, I can't draw, but have good ideas."

"I'm Blake by the way! Nice to meet you." After all, Blake couldn't and shouldn't be rude to her just because she was a first year. And again, Blake couldn't draw a stick figure without help, so he needed it. "I'd like to work with reducing plastic ... you okay with that?" His answers during class shouldn't surprise anyone that this was subject he wanted to broach.

"Sure we can do that! People can buy reusable water bottles, reuse the plastic ones they already have, and recycle their plastic ones to be remade! I promise I really can draw," she said, pulling up her right sleeve to show him her drawings. Hold up. wrong arm. That was her second-degree burns arm. She pulled up her OTHER sleeve to reveal her ACTUAL good drawings. "See, I can even draw people. What are you feeling for this project? We could do some pretty reusable water bottles to show why you should get one, we could make a comic about plastic filling up landfills, we can do anything you want. Anything. I'm Ashley by the way. Nice to meet you." She bounced on the balls of her feet excitedly. This was going to be the most epic project EVER!

Seeing the hand shoot up into the air, Finneas schmoe-sied his way over. Did hairspray count? Well, there were certainly more pressing issues at hand, but... as far as educational posters went and individual contributions to the reduction of pollutants? HECK YEAH, it counted. "Hairspray coming from an aerosol can?! It absolutely does count, Mr. Trent." He gave the kid what was meant to be a wink... But turned out to just be a blink.

When you try your best, but you don't succeeeeeeed.
Did it smell awful? Finneas couldn't tell. He had been hanging out in the classroom for so long that he must've been blocking out the smell. Got too used to it or something. "Ah, yes, our final activity." He simply GRINNED. Was he going to do anything about the smell?

No ♥

AnYwAy. He paused by Claudine for a moment longer before continuing to weave around the classroom. Everyone was doing excellent work thus far.

By the time Aboli was done writing, she jotted the down the following as per Schmoe's instructions.

There. Tax the rich! Her mother would be so proud of her. Even if they were....wealthy themselves, but she could remember they hadn't always been, especially not when she was very young. It had been entirely her mother's fault they had had poor finances, though - well, not her fault but like - IT WAS HER FAULT but mentally it wasn't her fault. But now was not the time to think about all that.

Muggle Studies had quickly turned into arts and crafts and you know what? That already made it so much of a better subject. Emmerson couldn't care an ounce about muggles or how they got by in life but she could get behind an art project and she already knew EXACTLY what she'd be trying to educate others about.

Hard pass on partners for this, mostly because then she'd have to listen to other people's ideas and that wasn't her strong suit. There were very few people Emmerson took seriously.

Markers, she would need markers. Crayons. Pencils. Paper.

Once she gathered all those things, it was time to get to work. There would need to be people here.....some fire there.......where was her orange marker?? Oh! There it was. Some fire heeeerreee.... some screaming people theeeerrreeee, some benches, some more people.

Not to be a conceited child, but this was turning out GREAT. She couldn't wait to show it to Schmoe when this was all over. He could hang it up in the classroom and everyone would learn something new.

A poster? Hmmm what could she do to make a difference with a post. Gemma wanted to jump on board with going out and doing something, not just make a poster. If she was going to make a poster though she had to come up with exactly what she would make.

What was she going to do? What should she make?

It looked like everyone else was busy, busy and she was still just sitting here. WHY COULDN'T SHE THINK OF ANYTHING SUPER COOL! Why was she not able to figure something out? She put her head down to think and think. What could she do, she wanted it to be big.

She knew what to do!! At least she thought she had heard about the problem, though she didn't know why they couldn't just use their wands to do a massive clean up.
Shrugging a bit she just got busy writing.

Name the problem: PLASTIC IN THE OCEAN
What can we do to fix it: Stop throwing trash out when you are near the ocean. Clean up if you see garbage floating around or in the water.
Motto: Swim with the fishes instead of kill the fishes!

She was energetic that was for sure ... were all first years like this? So full of excitement? Blake tried to think about to his first year ... was he like this to? He doubted it, he didn't talk much..

"I like the idea of the comic book, and each box the bottles are more and more and the earth less and less visible! They could really make this work, if she could draw as well as she said she can. Blake had faith!

"Cool," Ashley said. She wrote down
'Problem: plastic polluting the oceans and filling up landfills
solution: reduce plastic bottles bought, reuse existing plastic bottles, recycle plastic more
#plasticdestroyer'

she sketched an earth that was green and blue and pretty. Letters at the top said 'our world'. then in the next panel, the earth was a half full of plastic and the oceans were gray. The letters said "plastic fills the ocean, hurting the animals." Then in the third panel the earth was just a gray ball covered in plastic. It said, "Plastic is filling up landfills" For the last panel, there was the recycling symbol and the words, reduce, reuse, recycle. "Is there anything you want to change or add before I draw this for real? You can do the words if you want to."

AWWWWWWW YEAH. Killer! 'Cuz the only thing better than Hairspray, that's meeeeeee. (It's Corny Collins).

He gave Schmoe a big, ol' thumbs up and started to separate his glitters from his sequins. He wanted to make the poster retro, an homage to the musical set in the 1960s. He was gun paint the hairspray can with all kinds of beautiful and sparkly hues. Silver can. Rainbow lettering.

And then the hairspray can would be spraying out gorgeous glittery mist. It would flatten out into a sea of glitter above, turning the sky into a glittery mess. Which was gorg. But harmful. Ahhh. Beauty is pain, world.

As Kale started to make his glitter explosion into a reality, the best pun about saving the world popped into his head. Across the top of the poster he wrote in big, blocky letters:

"Don't Spray or the Ozone Will Decay!"

Cow burps contributed to pollution? What?! That might have been the strangest thing she had ever heard. Did that mean that chickens, pigs, and other livestock contributed to it as well? If that was really the case, maybe more people should consider being vegetarians.

Another reason why Avalon enjoyed Muggle Studies? Arts and crafts. Professor Schmoe sure did love his posters and markers. It was always a fun way to be creative. Definitely better than just reading from a textbook, in her opinion.

When it came to art projects, Avalon preferred working by herself. She was admittedly a bit selfish about her creative side. Once she was in the zone, she hated having to cater to others' opinions and ideas. After spending a good bit of the summer trying to design dresses with her mum, she had learned that she much preferred designing solo. So, once she grabbed some supplies, the Ravenclaw headed back to her desk to get started.

Avalon decided to make a poster about her suggestion from earlier in the lesson: clean energy. She started by drawing a picture of those weird wind machines (she didn't know the official Muggle name for them) she'd seen before when driving with her grandparents. Tall and spindly, with three blades. Needless to say Avalon spent much more time decorating the landscape with vibrant flowers and lush green grass rather than the wind machines themselves. But in a perfect world, where everyone used wind energy and didn't pollute the Earth, the landscape would surely look that beautiful, right?

Name the Problem: Air Pollution
What can we do to fix it or Suggest an Alternative: Use clean energy sources that don't need to be burned, such as wind, water, or solar energy.
Catchy tagline or motto: Wind Energy: A Wind-Wind Situation

Violet had been sitting half awake at her desk for what seemed like a long time before she realized what was written on the whiteboard, and for a minute it gave her a start. Then she realized it must be related to the lesson somehow, phrased in an alarming way to get their attention. She wouldn't be at all surprised if the earth was dying if all the Muggles were as hare-brained as her father had turned out to be.

Violet suddenly lost her train of thought entirely as she found herself staring hypnotically at the spiral-shaped metal thing the professor was holding...

Now came the ‘solution’ part of the poster. Claudine didn’t want it to be too wordy so she thought carefully, putting her thoughts down on paper before condensing it. Too many words might make viewers of the poster loose interest. In the end, the following statement was decided upon: Cast SILENCIO on your fireworks to prevent your babies from being unnecessarily startled! Reduce noise pollution!

These words, too, were filled in with bright colours after the letters were printed on the cardboard using regular pencils. Now for the final bit of the poster which happened to be a tagline or a motto. Catchy stuff were usually a bit difficult for her to come up with but she put on her thinking cap and sat there pondering. Finally, something came to mind.

#GetYourSilentSparkleOn

That hashtag {which Claudine had learnt all about during previous Muggle Studies lessons} was written out lightly in pencil then traced over with coloured glitter.

To conclude, the Snakette used black marker and a ruler to neatly add a border to the four sides of her poster.

Oh BOY! This was just an opportunity-in-disguise to create a meme, wasn't it?! Bernie threw herself at her parchment and got to work.

Name the Problem: Noise Pollution from Small Children
What can we do to fix it or Suggest an Alternative: SILENCIO!
Catchy tagline or motto: #SeenNotHeard
Describe with words or share via graphic or drawing what the poster will look like: I will draw this. HOLD THIS SPACE. WATCH OUT. IT'S A COMIN! ROUND! THE! MOUNTAIN! WHEN! IT! COMES!

Some more orange heeerreeee, a lot of background to set the sceeennnneeee and now she was done!

Emmerson scribbled her name, year and house onto the back of her poster before getting to the rest of things that needed to be added. This was the most informative poster she'd ever seen, even if she WAS only saying so herself. When she was done, the little girl laid the paper out before her for all and any to see--but mostly for Schmoe to see.

Quote:

Name the Problem: Idiot Pollution
What can we do to fix it or Suggest an Alternative: Keep them as FAR AWAY from you as possible to avoid contamination. Keep them far away until they get smarter.
Catchy tagline or motto: You can't sit with us
Describe with words or share via graphic or drawing what the poster will look like: Poster

"Professor! Professor, I'm finished! You have to come look. I did real good." Was he coming? The girl had moved to waving her info-paper about to gain his attention. "Professor!"

She fully expected him to gush and tell her what a good job she'd done, FYI.

Finneas was pleased to see Mr. Ryan and Ms. Fox working so well together, they looked like they were making great headway. And Aboli’s catchy motto received a good chuckle (or two) (or three) from the Schmoe-man as he walked by her work station. He gave a big grin to Ms. Kitridge, who was thinking deep (ocean deep) (get it?). He gave her a thumbs up as she continued working.

”Ha, don’t spray or the O-zone will decay!” Finneas chuckled as he walked by Mr. Trent’s masterpiece. Ms. Sinclair made quite the beautiful landscape, and Finneas stopped by to look at it over her shoulder. Perhaps for a minute too long. Everyone seemed to be—

”Er… Ms. Blackthorne, how’s your poster coming along?” because it looked as if she had stopped paying attention. Err…. Did she need assistance?

Claudine’s work was looking extra glittery and hopefully she had grown accustomed to the stench that had filled the classroom! So STINKY! Also stinky? Children. The apparent subject of Bernadette’s poster. Errr…. He gave her a questionable look, but er… it wasn’t near as questionable as the look he gave to young Ms. Cambridge.

”I…… See,” he looked over Emmerson’s work with wide eyes. This was…. Missing the point. ”That’s er……………………. Very nice.” It was….. Something alright. She scared him a little bit. He stood there and blinked. For a little while. #GrowaBrainFirst???? It was??? Uh. Not.... The point exactly..... ”You can take some tape and paste it onto the wall just outside of the classroom, if you’d like.”

Actually, this was a good time to give everyone a time warning. ”There’s about five minutes left for poster making! If you’re, er, done with your poster, you can take some tape and hang it in the hallway! We have ONE final activity before the end of class!” Meaning that if they tried to skip out now, that would be twenty detentions.

A POSTER?? Uh. Valentina listened to the instructions carefully before pulling out her parchment. Wait, what did she even want to write about?? Um. She absently stared out the window, stifling a yawn, suddenly feeling very tired.. kind of wishing she could take a nap. She turned to find the professor walking around a couple of moments later.. and she hadn’t even started yet! Oops.

Uhhhh. She started to write her name and house.. and stopped, again. This was ridiculous. How could she not think of ANYTHING?? Could she ask Schmoe for ideas? But she didn’t want the cool professor thinking that she was stupid. Nope. OOOOH. Oh. She had a BRILLIANT idea.

Name the problem - Sound pollution
What can we do to fix it - PLANT MORE TREES because they are natural sound barriers
Catchy tagline - less talking, more planting

Perfect.

"Looks great, wow you really can draw!" Blake added with a smile ... okay for a first year she was alright ... he wasn't sure he wanted to hang out on weekends just yet, but she was nice and easy to work with. "I'll do the words quick and you can finish up the drawing and we can put this one behind us!." Schmoe had just given out the last call warning, so they needed to wrap it up.

So....Josh was lost. He knew he was lacking a bit in the brains and smarts department, but this lesson was just making him feel downright dumb. He wasn't BAD at Muggle Studies either, not usually, but everything being said and explained was just going over his head and it was more than a little frustrating and he felt too embarrassed to ask questions about...most of the stuff. He was also still stuck on what a carbon footprint even meant but it seemed like the moment had passed there. He had no idea what clean energy meant as opposed to dirty energy either, just sort of hints here and there that he had gathered from his peers. Least he was able to narrow down the topic for his poster then since he couldn't make something about something he was utterly clueless about.

So...picking up trash it was. Which was already something that he did with his quidditch teams after matches. Go around the field and collect whatever may have flown down from the stands and sometimes even venture into the stands to help out there too. Made you respect the stadium and the game more. What else did he know well? Music...but he was feeling too out of sorts to do anything with that now and instead fell back on exercise since, well, that was drilled into his system now.

So...he was still going to roll with this land pollution...so in the upper corner of his parchment he wrote down the basics before going to collect his supplies and making an attempt at drawing something more than just a stick figure on the paper.

Quote:

Name the Problem: land pollution
What can we do to fix it or Suggest an Alternative: go on a trash dash (picking up trash while jogging aka plogging)
Catchy tagline or motto: Finish in 1st, Run for the Earth
[ beneath this text is this drawing ]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand he was going to slouch in his seat now.

No. Sorry, Professor, but she had not grown accustomed to that foul stench. Climbing to her feet, Claudine grabbed a roll of tape, a pair of scissors and her poster. She paused before moving from her seat. “Professor, something really does stink in here. I think you might need to use one of those Muggle things… freshner? Freshener?’’ Claudine eyed the man, daring him to do something about it. At any second she might throw up and she’d throw up on Schmoe for putting her through this.

Hoping she’d be able to rid her nostrils of the foul odor, the Snakette went out into the hallway, breathing in deeply after doing so. Horrible, stinky classroom. But maybe the next part of the lesson had something to do with that? They probably could be working on air pollution.

With that vague thought in mind, Claudine neatly taped her poster to one wall of the hallway. She then stood back to admire it. The girl really loved being an artist.

"Thanks. I really do love to draw. Nice lettering," Ashley said smilingly. She enjoyed this project. It was something that she could do without magic, so that was helpful as a muggle-born. She did the drawing for real while Blake wrote the words, and then she went to go hang it up. Their poster thing was so cool! Another project done.

Heath kept his head down until he felt Claudine nudge him. So you’re elbowing me now? He thought. I thought you didn’t like physical contact. He looked at her with a slight smile, but he didn’t want to disrupt the class by saying something back. Oh, but there was a reason to hide his face. Answers like that were the sort of thing that got him bullied in muggle school. For all he knew, every person in this room might think him a huge nerd now! At least Professor Schmoe seemed to like his answer; that was something.

He tried to distract himself from his embarrassment by taking notes, finishing just as the instructions for the activity were given. Great, an art project… just what he needed. He was really not good at drawing, not like… The thought crossed his mind to ask Claudine to be his partner. She could do the artwork, while he handled the nerdy, factual stuff, but when he glanced at her, he saw that she was already working by herself. He wasn’t offended - he knew she liked to do things on her own - but the fact remained that not having a partner made his work a lot harder. He was used to blueprints and schematics, having seen many of them in his model building hobby, not art!

Wait, that gave him an idea! His poster could be a schematic of a cooling tower! With his concept in mind, Heath went to retrieve a poster board and some markers. Now there was just the question of what type of cooling tower to illustrate. There were several types. Crossflow or counterflow? Natural draft or mechanical? One that looked like a box or the sort of beaker-shaped design? After some careful thought, he decided to go with a beaker-shaped crossflow mechanical draft design because it seemed easiest to diagram. He used a black marker to draw a tapered cylinder, wide at the bottom and becoming narrower toward the top. Near the top of the cylinder he drew a fan with a gray marker. Dotted blue lines at the sides represented the cold air coming in; dotted red ones represented the hot air being released through the top. The hot water coming in through the top was shown through solid red lines, and the cool water flowing back into the environment at the bottom through (you guessed it!) solid blue ones.

Heath was so focused on drawing an accurate diagram that he almost didn’t hear Professor Schmoe’s five minute warning. He quickly labeled each part of the cooling tower and wrote the following information at the bottom of the poster:

Quote:

Name the Problem: Thermal pollution
What can we do to fix it or Suggest an Alternative: Factories can install towers to cool heated water before releasing it back into the environment
Catchy tagline or motto: Keep it cool!

Mostly satisfied with his work, Heath went to hang his poster in the corridor outside the room.

Time to officially make the poster. SHE SAW THAT LAUGH, SCHMOE. It made HER laugh, and she was off to make the poster. She THOUGHT she might go for the minimalist approach...did she want to free-hand draw the straw or perhaps...try to use some straight edges from her notebook to draw one? They weren't hard to draw even if Aboli wasn't an artist. Now, her HANDWRITING was neat...it was always neat. She liked her handwriting.

Drawing a straw was harder than she originally thought, and so she decided to just draw a straw in a CUP because...alone, it looked weird. Wrong. And weird again. SO...

Her poster was DONE. It was kinda' crude, but it was cute at least.

It was activity time. Naya listened as the professor explained what they would be doing. She was always down for anything artsy crafty, so this sounded like it was right up her alley. She immediately went to retrieve some art supplies and returned to her seat to work on her poster. Naya knew which type of pollution she wanted to focus on. The hard part was going to be coming up with a catch phrase. That was definitely where she was lacking in the talent department.

Naya looked at the required information and began to jot down what she could, Then she had to think, really think of something good to sell her poster. Unfortunately, everything she could think of was extremely corny. Did they have to share their posters with the entire class? She hoped not because that would be awkward and definitely embarrassing. Still not sure of a catch phrase, she worked on the drawing part. Once that was done, she heard the professor say that they only had a few minutes left to work. It seemed that she was going to have to go with the corny phrase. When the poster was finished, Naya looked at it and was not pleased. Surely she could have done better than this.

Olivia was VERY pleased when the muggle studies professor actually named her and agreed with what she had to say. But that didn't mean she was any less annoyed with the general tone of the class. That was also her default setting so what could you do.

Nevertheless, the moment the professor explained the activity - Olivia knew what she wanted to do. It was probably the only way she could distract herself from being awfully negative about this school.

So, she pulled out a pouch from her back - filled with her various pencils, and markers and quills and everything she ever needed to draw anything, and then she silently got to working. She didn't have to think all that hard, and since she had already drawn Josh before - she found herself easily doodling away what she wanted. Each stroke brought with it a wonderful kind of satisfaction, and she refused to lift her head until the poster was done.

Once done, and feeling rather proud of her quick work, she wrote down the ... necessary details:

Quote:

Name the Problem: Lack of 'Self Polluting' Awareness
What can we do to fix it or Suggest an Alternative: Create Awareness so people will do better.
Catchy tagline or motto: Don't be daft, do better.

Once done, she looked up - just in time for the professor to announce they were almost done. Picking up the poster, she easily walked through the crowd and hung the thing in the hallway. Good.

SPOILER!!: the poster