Reflection

Before I started to write this poem, I didn’t know much about global warming or climate change. I didn’t know that big coral reefs could just turn white and die, or that a whole ecosystem could shut down so suddenly. I knew that the ice was melting and that the Earth was getting warmer, but I didn’t really know what that meant until I saw a map of where I live and saw that it would be underwater if all the ice melted. When I was doing my research, I also learned that sometimes the fish don’t even realize what’s going on until the reef is uninhabitable. That reminded me of myself before my research, so that’s what I decided to write about. I wanted to write in a really simple style, so I started by reading some poems by children’s authors like Shel Silverstein, and used his work to inspire my poem. When I was writing, I wrote what was in my mind before my research, and rewrote it over and over based on new information that I found. The speaker in my poem is telling a story about something they heard or saw happening to someone else, and doesn't realize that their home is going through the same thing even though all the evidence is there. I want to help more people learn about climate change so they can know what is going on and what they can do to help stop it.