Student Writing Samples: Connections to the Environment

In honor of Earth Day and the general state of the Earth, the students in my writing classes wrote a short essay entitled "My Connections to my Environment."  Below are two good samples (small errors have been corrected):

1. As a part of the ecosystem, human beings have a close relation to their environment, including anything around them.  As for me, I have my own connections to my environment, too.  

To be frank, the environment provides me with what I want, both substances and spirit.  The various foods I enjoy every day come from plants, while the plants must receive energy from the sun.  I can gain plenty of nutrients to keep my body healthy.  There are many materials used to make clothes, such as the furs of animals, the silk from silkworms, the fibres from plants, cottons and so on.  During holidays, my families and I may have a trip and appreciate beautiful landscapes to get fully relaxed and lear some historical civilization.  It not only gives me physical health, but also mental development. 

On the other hand, apart from the natural environment, I also have the second one, the human environment.  In other words, it is called society.  I should get along well with my classmates and friends.  A tree doesn't make a forest.  I should join in others and cooperate with them.  I will be very proud if I cam praised due to doing good deeds.  However, when I come across difficulty, I will ask somebody for help.  As a youth, I should keep enthusiastic all the time.  Thus, I ought to take responsibility to make my environment more beautiful.  

2. The environment has an inseparable relationship from human beings.  It offers humans all things we need.  Without it, we can't live.  

Every day we need to eat food, vegetables, fruits, meat, and all of these should be kept balanced.  It we just ate rice and noodles but had no vegetables and fruits, meat, we would die quickly.  So all the food that supports us to live was provided by the environment.  

Sometimes if we feel tired from a long time of work, we should relax ourselves, and enjoying the scenery is the best choice.  Also if you stayed at home alone, you would feel lonely.  A pet may help you to avoid the loneliness. 

Other things like flowers and plants are also very important to us.  We breathe oxygen and discharge carbon dioxide.  But the plants are just opposite to us.  So they help us a lot.  Also other things such as the desk, bed, and house that we need in our daily life are all made from wood.

Any other relationships the environment affect us is that different areas have different habits.  For example, in most northwest places in China, there are many mountains and the people who grow up in these places always like to eat noodles, but in south China, there are few mountains and always too much rain.  So people in these areas always like to eat rice and seafood.  Also in different areas, the climates are different so people's appearances are different.  

As human beings, everything around us is very important to our lives.  So we should try our best to protect our environment.  Don't just think about our needs and destroy the environment or we will pay huge expenses is the future.  

I liked these essays because they show the level of my students, as well as some of the cultural attitudes, such as taking individual praise, but relying on the group in difficulty.  Also, I'm not sure what to make of the notion that people's appearances are different due to the climate.  Maybe the population of the US is so mobile that we all look similar, whereas the people here are still largely regional.