Bài đọc 1
For years, every heavy rainstorm turned the playground at Riverside Secondary School into a small lake. Lessons in the ground-floor classrooms were sometimes cancelled because water came in under the doors, and the school paid thousands of pounds each year to repair the damage.
This year, a group of fourteen-year-old students decided to do something about it. As part of a science project, they studied how water moved across the school grounds and discovered that almost all of it ran off the hard surfaces of the car park and playground and collected in one low corner.
Their solution was a "rain garden": a shallow area of ground filled with special soil, stones and plants that can survive both very wet and very dry weather. Instead of flowing across the playground, rainwater is now directed into the garden, where it slowly sinks into the ground. The plants also attract bees and butterflies, and the students have added a bench so that the garden can be used as an outdoor classroom.
The project cost £4,500. Half of the money came from a local environmental charity, and the rest was raised by the students themselves through a sponsored walk and a cake sale. Parents and teachers helped to dig the garden over two weekends in March.
The first real test came in June, when the town had its heaviest rainfall for ten years. While several streets nearby were flooded, the playground stayed almost completely dry. "We were standing at the window watching the rain go into the garden," said Amira, one of the students. "Everyone was cheering."
The school's head teacher says the project has taught the students more than any textbook could. Two other schools in the area have already asked the group to help them design rain gardens of their own.