How technology is changing our lives

Thousands of years ago early humans were already using technology to hunt, gather and harvest crops. Since those very first spears and axes, technology has developed very far. Today we live in a world where information travels almost instantly across the Earth. We are in a place where people can travel faster than the speed of sound and where we keep discovering new things and new ways to improve. 

New technology startups are being formed everyday and revolutionary technologies are being developed faster than ever before. Facebook recently bought the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset for two billion dollars after it had been a startup for only a short period of time. Google is building driverless cars which means that future generations may never need to learn to drive. Other companies like Tesla have developed electric sports cars that can go 270 miles in one charge.
Anyone can make a successful startup with a good idea and some hard work.  Well, no you need to be very lucky. You need to be able to betray your close friends and lie straight to peoples faces. You need to be willing to do many things to get your idea out there. Whether it includes sleepless nights or not spending any time with your friends and family, that is all part of the pack. With more and more technological advances it has become increasingly difficult to succeed. 

Disposal of Nuclear Waste

Nuclear waste consists of products that contain radioactive material. There are three types of radioactive decay: alpha decay, beta decay and gamma decay. An alpha particle is made up of two protons and two neutrons combined. It can easily be stopped: a paper sheet does the trick. Beta particles can be positive or negative,  depending on how they were transformed. It can be stopped by an aluminum sheet. 

Do fish drink water?

"Do fish drink water? How do they drink ANYTHING at all??" - Anonymous

Why promises of presidential candidates never become reality

A look into the EEB2 student representative elections and what goes down once they have been elected.

Interview with Austėja Linartaitė, President 2016-2017

On Tuesday this week, the students of EEB2 were faced with choosing their president for the coming school year. Both candidates made compelling speeches expressing their motivation and goals for the upcoming year. With a small difference of 14 votes, the students elected Austeja their president for this year. What happens now? We asked when we talked with Austėja about her plans for the coming year. 

Mock United Nations (M.U.N.) and EEB2's Future Team

On Friday 15 January, a group of EEB2 students braved the cold and snowy conditions to take a train to Wavre and walk two kilometres into the Belgian countryside to visit the international school of Le Verseau. The purpose of this excursion was to attend an M.U.N. training conference and discover what M.U.N. is all about. 

The group experienced an impressive simulation of the workings of the United Nations and received a lesson in United Nations vocabulary, diplomatic conventions and international relations. It was clear that the students at Le Verseau had gained immensely from the research work involved, the public speaking experience, the debating and the critical thinking – all of this while gaining huge experience of working together as a team. 

Where would you rather be ill?

Why are the countries which achieve a high ranking in the World Health Organisation's (WHO) scale of performance in healthcare mainly found in Europe?

Healthcare services differ substantially around the globe and looking at the WHO reviews present quite a few surprises. For instance, Italy, ranked second best, has one of the most comprehensive and efficient healthcare systems on the planet. Russia, on the other hand, falls short of the performance results achieved in Pakistan, Albania and Bangladesh which have a far less developed economies.

"Brussels is a graveyard of living beings"

Belgium shut down all schools on the 23rd of November. The decision was made by our Prime Minister, Charles Michel. I was happy about it at first because it meant I didn't have to finish my math homework, but then, I realised it wasn't right at all.

The numerous measures taken over the past few days have made fear grow in our hearts. We often hear Charles Michel saying that the threat is "imminent". The threat of what, terrorism? The fact is that we have no idea of what is going on in this country. Belgian police authorities say it’s for our own safety that we don’t know anything yet, but is it really if we are too scared to leave our house?

The terrorists attacked Paris, aiming to destroy our culture and our way of life. They haven't attacked Brussels yet but we are doing the job for them anyway: we are destroying our lifestyle right now by shutting everything down.

The problem is that the government is doing this because they don’t know what else to do. Yesterday on the Belgian talk show "C'est pas tous les jours dimanche", the president and spokesman of the Free Union of the Public and Police Function, Vincent Gilles, admitted that they don’t know what the security level 4/4 means. This is because the government created the different levels of security without saying which necessary measures had to be taken, and where. 
I agree with the fact that we are “better safe than sorry”, but only to certain extent; we shouldn't just be safe, we should also feel safe and yet all these measures to the continuous “imminent threat” just make us feel scared.

by Sarah Mignot

Interview with Mr. Park

On Monday 19^th October, Professor Jinwhan Park from the Gyeongsang National University South Korea came to eeb2. Mr. Park is the president of “Philosophy with Children and Youth Network” in Asia and the Pacific (PCYNAP), he came to our school to explain this philosophical and ethical idea and I had the pleasure of interviewing him.

When you think of philosophy, you think of the academic one, the one we study, also known as the study of  nature and  its causes, of the principles of reality, of knowledge and our values, all based on logical reasoning. Mr Park's intention is not to teach academic philosophy to children. What he wants to do is teach them more about practical philosophy. By doing that, he teaches children how to be able to make an ethical and logical judgement in a particular situation. "It is crucial that younger students learn how to make a good judgement because some of them might be the future leaders of democratic societies so the sooner they are able to do it the better", he says. 

Humans but No Humanity

At least 120 people dead, 352 wounded, 99 of them severely. Six attacks shook Paris last night on Friday, 13^th November. 

17 people killed by a suicide bomber in Baghdad, Irak, on Friday at a memorial service for a militia fighter killed in batttle against the ISIS.

Suicide bombings in southern Beirut, Lebanon on Thursday 12^th, kiling 43 people and at least 239 wounded victims. 

What do all of these attacks have in common? They were all sanctioned by ISIS.

Close-mindedness and intolerance are our biggest enemies these days. ISIS is chasing after innocent people for the belief that they are right and have for “mission” to kill anyone who does not follow their radical ideals, forcing thousands of people to seek refuge in other countries and causing nations to live in fear.

The Super Blood Moon

In the night between the 27th and the 28th, the moon was eclipsed by the Earth.

An eclipse happens when a celestial body obscures another one, making it completely or partially shaded; in this case, the Earth and the moon were the two bodies concerned.

The rare and strange thing about this eclipse was that the moon was not eclipsed the way it usually is. During this eclipse, the moon was at the nearest place that it could have been to the Earth, so the details we could see were incredible.

However, this time it also appeared red to the terrestrials, which is why it was called “blood moon” - this term having been used for as long as eclipses have been recorded.

In defence of the European Schools - An open letter in response to POLITICO

Last week, the European edition of POLITICO published an article about the European Schools. The Euroschools rarely attract any press coverage and the internet has remained generally free of journalists caring about our system until now. Once their article appeared on the front page of their website, thousands of students and parents instantly read their critique of the European Schools.

The article was clearly a hit. After four days it remained the second most read article on the POLITICO website, receiving even more views than the coverage of the Greek crisis. It painted a misleading picture of a crumbling education system that alienated most of its students through bureaucracy, and ignoring nationality in a school system resembling a Kafkaesque nightmare. Contact with students as well as graduates and parents upheld our view that the article was misguided and prioritized controversy over fact. In fact, after talking to one of the students who was quoted in the article, it surfaced that her positive outlook of the schools had been overshadowed by cherry-picked criticisms.

Interview with Professor Christopher Brummer of Georgetown University

‘To get to where you want in life, you always have to go through a period of hard work.’

Only 36 and already highly successful. I interviewed Christopher Brummer, law professor at the prestigious Georgetown University in Washington D.C. He started his career at a young age in Germany, and has traveled the world since. He is a great fan of Star Wars and has built quite a collection. I spoke with him over skype, and asked him more about his fascinating life.