Rubbing her eyes and stifling a yawn, Valentina walked into the classroom. She wasn’t the biggest fan of early morning classes but it wasn’t like she had a choice, aaaanyway. The gryffindor headed straight for a seat somewhere near the back, smiling up at the professor. Hope you’re doing well.”

....... UHM WHAT. She stared at the words written on the board for a long moment before sitting down slowly, already dreading this lesson. It was going to be scary, wasn’t it??

THIS was the class Olivia wanted to be in. She knew she would be good at it, and she was in no mood to hide it. While usually she opted to sit at the back of the class so she could observe and sketch in peace, today she purposely took a seat in the front.

Proud muggle dad's daughter right here, hello.

Settling down, she didn't miss the words written on the board and gave the professor a small look. He seemed harmless enough, and entirely the kind to panic over everything.

So maybe the words were an exaggeration. Hmm.

"Eventually though we are all going to die anyway, you know" she said to the man and opened her book.

So...this was a cheery situation to walk into.

First was was one younger Hufflepuff talking about planting trees and picking up trash and next was the ever ray of sunshine that was Olivia Caffery reminding everyone how death was inevitable.

So...uh...what?

His thumb running along the strap of his bag on his shoulder, the sixth year saw what was written on the board and it sort of all came together. Sort of. Had he just walked into an Astronomy lesson on accident? He thought the forgetfulness stuff was all over this term but...uh...what?

Professor Schmoe in the front of the classroom did bring some reassurance. Some. His brown eyes shifted to the thing in the professor's hand. "Uh...hey, professor," Josh greeted warily as he side stepped his way over to a vacant seat and plopped himself down in it, not looking to see who he was beside.

"...is that springy thing the reason for our destruction?"

Should their professor just be playing so idly with it like that?

The Earth was dying?

D Y I N G?

Like proper dying?

It was only 9 AM but Emmerson Nicole Justine Cambridge now had questions. "Professor?" She said, slipping into her seat with all the calmness in the world. The sign didn't scare here. Nothing Professor Schmoe did scared her. The man was kinda like those bugs and lizards your parents always tried to convince you were more afraid of you than you were of them. In this case, Schmoe was more afraid of himself and his children and air and rocks and water and probably ghost than they were of him.

"If the Earth is dying, shouldn't we be spending our final moments outside by the lake eating cake? Class seems like a shoddy way to go. I can think of at least three other ways that be better if you wanna use one of those."

Learning as you went was S U C H a Ravenclaw thing to do.

And then there was a great sack of a person plopping next to her. If it startled her, it only showed a little before the little girl's hands moved to her hips and her brows set. "That's Kizzy's seat." In case he wasn't paying attention. Joshua was [/i]never[/i] paying attention. "You can sit here instead." Emm pointed to the chair on the other side of her, not caring who that one belonged to.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnd that was the lot of them, yeah? Finneas closed the door (a little harder than he meant to) and bumbled his way to stand front and center. "Errrrr... Good morning, everyone! I hope you all brought your thinking caps with you today." He knocked on his noggin. AnYwAy.

"Errrr... The earth IS dying, but there's no need to panic! We're not in peril danger (yet)." It is actually a very pleasant time to be alive (until the sun burns through our atmosphere and kills us all). (But more on that later.) "As some of you may have guessed... Today we are starting a NEW unit, all about the exciting and not at all soul crushing topic of POLLUTION!" What did this have to do with Muggles? Stay tuned.

"Before we dive too deeply, let's err..... Let's brainstorm a little bit. Pollution comes in MANY forms. What are some types of pollution that you are all familiar with? And errr... For those of you who may be less familiar with the topic, why do you think pollution is harmful? What's so bad about it?" He looked around the room with his beady eyes for a moment. Anyone? Anyone?

OOC: Hello, friends! Class has officially STARTED. Remember, there are no late arrivals beyond this point unless you wanna face the IC consequences *FLICKERS FLASHLIGHT*

First question is up! Please stick to 1 answer so that others have an opportunity to participate as well. I'll post again in about 24ish hours to move the lesson forward.

Naya was glad to know that the earth’s death was not imminent. That would have definitely been a buzz kill. AnYwAy, class was starting and the Gryffindor turned her attention to the professor. It seemed that the topic of the day was going to be pollution. That made sense. It would certainly contribute to the earth dying.

When the first questions were asked, Naya raised her hand immediately. “One type of pollution is water pollution.” Being a lover of the ocean, lakes, any bodies of water really, she had an interest in this topic. “It can happen because of people throwIng trash into the water, factories pouring chemicals into the water, oil spills, waste finding it’s way there. There are a million ways it could happen, all of them bad. Basically, it involves things in the water that don’t belong there naturally.” Naya could go on and on about how water pollution could affect people and animals, but she decided to stop talking and listen to her classmates’ thoughts on the matter.

Inspiring? How, in any way, shape, or form, was that message inspiring? More like sad and depressing. Avalon nodded back at Professor Schmoe somewhat skeptically as she took a seat. Sure, the Earth had some issues with natural resources and bad air and all that, but was it really dying?

Well, the ominous message made a little bit more sense now that she knew they were talking about pollution. Avalon thought back to some pictures she saw at the Muggle news stands in London, specifically a newspaper headline featuring a photo of a sea turtle with a plastic bag stuck around its neck. How could people be so stupid as to throw their trash into the water? How would they feel if some other, larger creature was throwing trash into their house? It really infuriated her, how careless some people could be. But Naya had already mentioned water pollution, so Avalon decided to talk about a different type.

"Air pollution is really dangerous, too. Chemicals from Muggle cars and machinery affect the air quality." That was why her mum's family had one of those special cars that was supposed to be environmentally friendly. On road trips, her grandfather always used to stop at gas stations to plug the vehicle into some box. "It can make it difficult for some people to breathe, and some of the gases are extremely toxic." She was pretty sure it had something to do with temperatures getting warmer, too, but she wasn't all too familiar with that issue. Avalon much preferred wizarding transportation, thank you very much. Faster, safer, and no pollutive side effects.

Morgan continued to squint at the doomsday message on the board from his seat. It probably would have held more weight last term with the red sky and the crazy storm and the progressive disappearance of their corporal bodies. So, he just kind of stared at it until he eventually lost interest and turned his attention on Schmoe when he started class.

Oh. Pollution. As in it was slowly killing the earth? Morgan would have to admit that he'd never really given that subject all that much though, be he DID know what pollution was. In a very elementary way at least.

"Yeah, cars make pollution," he offered after raising his hand, expanding on what that other girl said. His parents had a car so he knew a little bit about them. "There's this pipe at the back of them and sometimes smoke comes out of it." Don't ask him specifics, he wasn't a mechanic. "And that kind of pollution makes it hard to breathe."

"Cars and buses pollute the environment," Ashley volunteered. "Muggles use cars as their main forms of transport, so there is a lot of pollution from that." Another thing that muggles didn't have. Magical transport. She waited for someone to start talking about how everything was muggles' fault. "Pollution is bad because it messes up the environment. It's burning a hole in the protective layer of the atmosphere, which means the sun shines extra hard, and the gasses like carbon dioxide I think trap the extra warmth, and it bounces around the earth frying everything and causing natural disasters. Basically. In a nutshell." See? Simple. Just like muggle science class.

Pollution, huh? That didn't sound very fun. In fact, it was definitely not fun. But Alexandre was still choosing to remain hopeful about the remainder of the class. In the meantime he tried to think about what he knew about pollution. He raised his hand. "Pollution is like when you eat a candy bar and throw the wrapper on the floor. Wait.. actually that's littering. But.. I think they're kind of the same thing. It's bad for the environment. If an animal or something comes and eats it it could get sick." And that was bad. Alexandre knew that his answer wasn't quite as sophisticated as some of his classmates, but he was pretty satisfied with it.

This was a distressing topic, especially for one such as Kale that lived in fa-lee-la-dee land pretty much every moment of day. The world was ending and Schmoe had doubled down instead of being reassuring. WHaT eveN wAS ClasS tODaY?

With a little bit of distress still present in his voice, Kale said, "Pollution can make some really beautiful sunsets. He quickly added, "But its, uh, bad. Really bad."

"Well the amount of plastic human's use is ridiculous." Blake added, "The pollution it does to our oceans is insane." Blake remember a family trip to the beach once that was literally more plastic than sand. It was rather sad ... and must humans didn't care about it anyway.... "Or wait ... is that littering? Or both?" Blake may have mixed the two terms together but the end result was still the same ... the oceans were more plastic than water ... and the ocean life was dying because of it.

Austin thought about this for a minute. He had an answer up but he wasn't sure if it would be right or not. He shrugged and raised his hand.
"Noise polution perhaps professor," he said. He wasn't sure why but he has heard about it before.

With a polite smile towards the Professor, her attention quickly turned back to the children in the class around her.

The smile on Ingrid’s face had almost faltered for a moment as she turned back in her chair, her eyes moving from the familiar face of Ashley to the loud, obnoxious Gryffindor girl who seemed do have a very high opinion of herself. [B]“Well if the the problem kidsget detention, that must mean that you must have had several off him then”[/I], her eyes now sarcastically rolling as she turned back around, ignoring the stern look? Ingrid couldn’t really tell and didn’t care. Just let her try and be a big bad fourth year. Pathetic. She may have been a first year but she was still a Luck and Luck’s were not intimidated easily.

With her attention almost firmly on the lesson, her eyes fixed on the professor as he awkwardly brought their attention to him, she brought her quill to parchment ready to take notes because she had indeed brought her thinking cap.

With so many of the other children in the class coming up with so many good ideas, Ingrid simply listened and copied down what they were all saying for a moment. She too had thought about all of the harmful effects of pollution but for her, it mainly came in the form of how it would affect the magical creatures that she helped look after at home although that had been already covered by one of the older Ravenclaws that she didn’t really recognise (Alexandre Pascal). Maybe Leighton knew him? She’d have to ask. Flashing the boy a timid smile because, you know, she really appreciated his good answer, she raised her hand to try and answer too.

“Everyone, not just creatures, could get hurt by pollution. If they swim in the polluted water or their homes are affected by the waste, it could really have an impact on their species and the numbers in the wild and they could even get extinct” and extinct magical creatures was not something that she would allow, that was, if she could actually do something about it which she couldn’t. Not yet at least.

Sophie groaned inwardly. Their unit was going to be on pollution and climate change, and that was just such a depressing topic. She knew it was important. At least her dad thought so. He was always going on about recycling and sustainability, whatever that meant. As she listened to her fellow students, she became increasingly distressed. They were taking all the good answers! What was left? She wracked her brain.

"Um, how about space pollution, Professor?" she asked. Before anyone could shoot her a look like is this girl crazy, she elaborated. "My dad says muggles shoot up a bunch of satellites and junk into space and it just stays there orbiting the Earth and occasionally falling back down but eventually the planet is just going to be surrounded by a bunch of floating garbage basically."

Charlie groaned when she saw the board. Earth Dying. Why was everyone wanting to teach them about dirty things? First the elder wand, then the trolls, now pollution. What gives this term. She had taken her seat in a normal place among the crowd. Ah so they were talking about pollution today. Raising her hand and twisting a curl in the other she waited to be called on. “Well trash, you know the landfills the muggles use can hurt the soil, water, or air. And the amount muggles actually recycle to prevent waste is minimal.”

Was Torin reading her mind? Claudine threw him a sideways glance but said nothing on the subject. She was interested in hearing Schmoe’s response to the question. As her gaze shifted to the other students arriving, a hint of a smile graced her usually serious features. She tried to hide it but realised that these days, she smiled more whenever Heath came around. “Hi, yourself,’’ she said quietly, her tone warm. It was only natural that the conversation among the group led by that first year Ravenclaw {Ashley}. Claudine arched an eyebrow. Wasn’t she the little know-it-all. She tried to ignore Grantham, however. It was just like the Gryffindor to be bossy. Was she aiming to be a prefect? This Snakette couldn’t care less about either Grantham and a badge.

Claudine absently doodled in her notebook until class got started. When Schmoe addressed them all, the doodling stopped. Yes, she’d brought her thinking cap. Now, pollution was a topic that she rarely thought of. Of course she knew what it was. Claudine knew one type of pollution but first, she wanted to listen to these know-it-alls, especially that first year Ravenclaw. Did she swallow every text book on the topic?

The fourth year perked up when Austin gave his answer. Noise pollution was exactly what she’d been thinking and her hand went up. “Like Austin said, Professor, noise pollution is one form. I’d consider any person speaking loudly to be contributing to that form of pollution. That’s harmful because it can make others’ ears hurt.’’ Not to mention, it annoyed Claudine to the maximum. Then again, she considered most people speaking noise pollution. Especially the ex best friend that came in the form of Bernadette Grantham.

Uhhhhh... so this wasn’t going to be a cheerful lesson. Why OH why did the professor have to come up with such a sad topic?? Valentina looked at him, extremely unimpressed. She waited until the girl nearby finished before raising her hand to answer the question.

“Light pollution, Professor.” .... wait, it was a type of pollution, right?? She was pretty sure that she had read about it somewhere.

POLLUTION. The bane of her existence. Of all their existences, actually. She raised her hand. "Well, professor, muggle factories produce a lot of waste and our carbon footprint is HORRENDOUS." She wasn't an expert on pollution, but she was trying not to repeat something someone had already said!

Plastic...water...someone had said noise pollution, which was complicated...she had heard of light pollution, but she didn't fully understand it...so...

Yeah.

The Earth is dying. Just great. Neddie was completely unfazed by it. Lately going to class was becoming a struggle, and it was evident in her usual cheery face that has gradually lost its smile. Watching the Muggle Studies professor, she sat a little straighter. He is one of the professors she’s learning to appreciate. Therefore, he has her attention.

Alsoooo. The Slytherin prefect was there, and...yeah. She was cool.

For whatever reason, her hand shot up into the air. She has answers. Lots of them. “Uhm...pollution is harmful and has side effects. For example, it can hurt our respiratory system and/or make existing health issues worse.” And that’s all she wanted to offer for now.

Valencia. Was. Excited. This appeared to be a SCIENCE lesson. That's what the Ravenclaw had been hoping for. It seems like all the types of pollution had been mentioned -- air, land, water, light, and noise.

She wracked her brain for something obscure that she could mention. Then she had an idea and raised her hand. "I've heard people call things like water that's used in factories are put back at a different temperature as pollution. They're not putting any chemicals or anything in it -- which I think is the tradition definition, but they're altering something about it which affects local wildlife, which I think fits the definition of pollution."

If fish can't survive because the water is too hot then that's a problem regardless of what they decide to call it.

Heath blinked, slightly caught off guard by the professor’s offer. While he was curious about what a slinky would do on the moving staircase, he wondered if that was something that might get him into trouble. He did not want to wind up on the headmaster’s bad side this term or any term, come to think of it! Still, it was a nice offer. “Thank you, sir,” he replied with a small smile, unsure what else to say.

Claudine also got a smile from Heath as she returned his greeting, but his smile faded when he overheard Bernie talking to Ashley and Ingrid. Blink, blink. Was she actually trying to scare the first years, or did she just not consider how her words sounded? That was something Heath could never figure out about her, and that was the only thing stopping him from saying something to her now. Well, that, plus the fact that he was too far away to talk to her without shouting across the room, and Professor Schmoe probably would give detention for that!

Never mind, class was starting anyway. Heath looked up as Professor Schmoe spoke, and it was only then that he saw the ominous writing on the board. HOW did he not notice that until just now?! Inwardly berating himself for his obliviousness, he listened to the professor. Pollution, yes, that made sense. Heath couldn’t think of anything else the topic could possibly have been with that message on the board… unless it was a quote from some movie he didn’t know. He paid attention to the others’ answers as he considered the question, and he had to stifle a smile at Claudine’s answer. He felt the same way about noise pollution! Loud talking always flustered him, but he’d never be bold enough to say that out loud. The thought crossed his mind to piggyback off of that answer and offer a broader definition of noise pollution, but he didn’t want Claudine to think he was copying or trying to one-up her.

Instead, Heath decided to go a different direction with his answer. Unfortunately, someone else (Valencia) gave the exact answer he had in mind before he could speak. Ugh! Now what was he going to do? He couldn’t think of anything other types of pollution that hadn’t already been said, so he supposed the next best thing would be to give a different example of one of those types. “Thermal pollution,” he said after raising his hand. “Another cause is cold water released from reservoirs, which has eliminated native fish species in some parts of the world.” He couldn’t recall exactly where, but he remembered reading that it happened.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

What had he done? What? Whaaaaaaat had he done?

He was asking the ceiling this as his head rolled back a bit and he stared up at it, because of all the random seats to flop in...it had to be here. Because of course it had to be here. There were worse people he could have flopped next to, but this was probably top ten. And he felt like if he were to bend at this...then, well, then he would lose the game. Whatever the game was.

"Then she can sit there," he said in a rather dignified manner as he set his notebook down on top of the desk purposefully. "Class is starting anyway and it would be rude to get up and disrupt the professor."

Who apparently thought the made up word of slinky was going to calm his skepticism. It was not and Josh simply squinted a bit more at the silvery metallic string. Sure. Okay. Sure.

Sooooooo pollution. Having no idea what a carbon footprint was or this carbon dioxide several of his peers were going on about...but he knew about trash or, er, land pollution...he supposed that could be categorized for. "Well...we, er, wizarding kind, take muggle forms of land pollution...the trash and such...and turn it into portkeys. So...we sort of benefit from no-maj waste and it helps protect the Statute."

See, she made sense. But honestly, how could anyone not be aware of pollution? Wizard or not, they all lived on the same planet. Or were the wizards now secretly planning to shift to another? Of course, Olivia wouldn't be surprised if they were.

Back to the class though, she didn't particularly wait her turn - the moment someone stopped speaking, she spoke up, "Visual Pollution is also a thing; anything that can cause you eye or mental fatigue just by sight alone"

And while she would have waited to speak again, but then Josh spoke up, and she couldn't help but make a face, "you know it's not just muggles who cause pollution" - since it was a running theme in the class "wizards are just as capable of producing waste"

She didn't have an example on top of her head, but she needed to say it. Hmpf.

Emeerson's brows crinkled in obvious confusion, the kind that said the gears in her head were working overtime to no avail. Find out how to save the Earth? "But then we'll still have class and I'd rather just have the cake." It seemed like less work and tasted way better. Where was the Professor's head today? It was simple math really.

The little Gryffindor tried listening to whatever else the professor said about the planet but all she could really hear was J O S H U A trying to steal her bestfriend's seat and basically take her place and erase her from existence. "WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS SHOWING UP TO RUIN THINGS??" She demanded. Nearly releasing her baby dragon onto the train and now THIS. Why couldn't he leave them alone? Did he want to see what happened when tables were turned?? Kid had a lot of time on her hands.

This was practically war.

"Fine. Stay." You stay right there, Mr. Jo-shu-a. Right there. She didn't know how yet, but she would make him regret it--to avenge her friend who would now have to take another seat.

Rude.

After such an affront, who honestly CARED about a dying planet?? "Idiot pollution Professor. They come in and ruin things and give you headaches and make you itch and drain all the oxygen out of the air with their big, dumb boy brains--but there's idiot girl brains, too. They're the worst kind 'cause half the time they don't know they're doing it and only you suffer. Then the W E I G H T~ of all the stupidity weighs you down over time til your back hunches and your eyes glaze over until you pray for the sweet release of someone putting them out of their misery for you."

She had delicate hands, couldn't possibly do her own dirty work.