Conservation through research and education.
- Home /
- Adventure Learning Program /
- Student Journals /
- Kaley Norris
Student Ambassador Blogs
Kaley Norris
Age: 15
Sponsor: PBI-Australia, SeaWorld Gold Coast Australia
School: Holland Park High School
City: Holland Park, Australia
Biography:
I’m Kaley, and I live in Holland Park with my mum, Sandra, and my younger sister, Shelley. My dad Gary, lives at Runaway Bay on the Gold Coast, my sister and I stay with him every second weekend.
I was born in Rockhampton in Central Queensland, and lived there until I was 13. Rockhampton was a great place for me to grow up because it was so small and everyone got along really well. I went to a primary school called Crescent Lagoon State School, where I found an interest in the Japanese language. I started studying Japanese when I was seven at a school-based program called Capricorn Lote Immersion Program. I attended this program two days a week, and to speak English was forbidden. It was such an amazing way of learning and is extremely successful. I completed senior high school Japanese by the end of year 10 and this led me to being invited to complete further studies at Griffith University, which I had to turn down due to a problem with timetables. Although I have been studying Japanese for the majority of my life, I haven’t had the pleasure of going to Japan.
I would love to travel, however I have only been to one country other than Australia, New Zealand, as my mum is a Kiwi. When traveling, the people that you have the pleasure to meet and the experiences that you encounter as just astounding. One of my main goals in life is to see the world.
Anyway, back to the real world. I attend Holland Park High where I am the Student Council President. I really enjoy my role as I love hearing others opinions and suggestions and working together as a team to achieve something. My favorite subjects at school are art, ancient history, and multi-strand science. I have a part-time job at Bakers Delight in Buranda, which I love, as I get to interact with others and met new friends outside of school.
When I grow up, I want to be a radio personality, a psychologist, or a zoo keeper. I want something that I will love and want to do for the rest of my life and that can give me many opportunities.
Journal Entries
Tuesday October 6, 2009, 1:21 pm
My forward action plan for when I go back to Australia is to go around to all my local primary schools and educate them about P.B.I and what they can do to help reduce carbon emissions and how they can save the polar bear. I would like to do this within the first few weeks of my return. Another plan of mine is to make a speech to my entire school and get them to support me and my vision, I am going to implement the use of bio-degradable toilet paper and paper towels for the bathrooms. I am going to encourage the use of recycled paper for the school printers and photo copiers. I would also like to go to the Brisbane City Council and ask if my friends and I can find areas of grass and plant trees there. To get the money for these trees, I was thinking that I would go around to second hand stores and buy old clothes and materials and make them into jewelry and sell them to my friends and schoolmates. Some of the things that I and my family are going to do include, shorter showers, riding my bike to school everyday, using canvas bags for grocery shopping, and using food scraps as compost. These are only a few of the things that I will be doing to cut down on carbon emissions, and I will definitely encourage my friends, family and neighbors to do the same thing. All of the ideas I have mentioned above will be put into action as soon as I return home, as we only have 5 years to make a difference, we must act now.