New Eco badge

If you have been at KISC, I’m sure you’ve passed the tunnel on the way to the chalet from the campsite. Also I’m sure you’ve seen the beautiful art drawings on the wall such as the KISC Crystal, the Swiss flag, or the different badges.

A few weeks ago, we made some changes to our tunnel. One of them is………….

Ta da ~ KISC’s new Eco badge!! It’s so cool, isn’t it? Nobody has got the new badge yet. Come to KISC and get it!! Don’t know the way to earn the badge?

Let me tell you about it.

Eco is one of our 3 programme themes here at KISC (International Friendship, Eco and High Adventure). For each section we offer a bunch of guided and unguided activities you can do during your stay.

For the Eco award we have 5 activities you can participate in, divided in two different areas. You should complete 4 items from each area to gain the Eco award. One area is called ‘Natural World’. In this area you go out and explore and learn about nature. The other area is called ‘Eco Actions’ in which you can learn how to co-exist with nature and what you can do to protect the environment we live in.

Natural World

1. Take part in the Evolving Alps Hike
2. Complete the Gemmipass Eco Hike or the Electrifying Oeschinensee Adventure
3. Get more then 75 points in the Eco-I-Spy
4. Take part in a Centre Guided Hike, Snow & Ice activity, Climbing activity or any Winter activity
5. Go Bat Watching or stargazing with our Astronomy Activity

Eco Actions

1. Follow the Green Campsite Trail
2. Finish the Green Chalet Trail
3. Take part in the Solar Power Experience
4. Go to the Eco room, look at the displays and do one of the unguided activities using the leaflets there
5. Take part in The Secret Life of Bees

Find out more information about the different activities on our homepage. Why not be the first person who gets the new badge?!

Hye Mee (KR)

STS Summer 2012

 

Solar Power

As you already should know, there's a lot of cool stuff going on around the Centre. Did you know that you can easily pop popcorn with help from just a mirror and the sun?

I didn't, but today I was trying out what our Greenpeace guys are teaching our guests every day – Solar Power Experience.  It was pretty amazing. 

The earth fits 1.3 million times in the sun if you compare the sizes. It's huge! 

It's actually more than enough of energy to get from the sun to meet all of our energy needs. Isn't that cool?

So we started up with a description of the suns size compared to the earth. Can you see the little needle compared to the big ball? But the distance is not true in this picture..

We tried to heat a stove with only the help of some mirrors pointed in the suns directions. It warmed up really quickly. 

They also had a quiz with really good questions that you learned a lot from. A European uses fourteen times much energy than a person living in India, and an American twice as much as a European..  

And what makes an activity better than popcorn? Just a few seconds and the popcorn was all over the place. The heat goes up to 200 degrees in there.

Then we were using magnifiers to burn into wood, I was so amazed about this, it was so easy and fast. 

As you can tell from my words, there's a lot of amazing things you can try with just power from the sun. And if you want to make the world a better place, you should start using solar power instead of anything else, because as you can tell we have loads of it. And KISC loves to be ECO friendly as you know!

  

Kristina Bogren (SE)

STS Summer 2012

Magic Forests

In the early 1900s people with illnesses related to their lungs, like turbeculosss, went on pilgrimage to the "fresh air of the alps" to get rest and hopefully get better. Infact the air is cleaner than most of Europe. An easily seen indicator of that can be seen in the woods from Kummenalp to Ferden during any of the hikes going over the Lötschenpass. The indicator is lichens.

Lichens are organisms consisting of one fungus and usually one alga. Lichens are very tough organisms when it comes to clima. They can i.e. be found in deserts, in arctic places, rain forests, rocky coasts etc. They need no soil to be able to grow, because they take the water directly from the air. The fungus part takes care of collecting water and the alga part takes care of providing the organism with energy through photosynthesis.

The way they collect water though, makes them very vulnerable to air pollution and especially a substance called Sulfur dioxid (SO2). Sulfur dioxid comes mainly from petroleum and therefor cars, motorcycles, planes, industries and power plants. Fortunatly the air here in the alps is clean enough so that these magic forests may be. Lets keep it that way!

Simon (SE)

Summer High Season 2012

Juicinator - The Juice Maker

One of the newest Eco activities available at KISC is the Juicinator! But what is the Juicinator?!

The Juicinator is an old bike that has been given new life, by our hardworking Pinkie crew, as a man powered juice-maker. In less than 5 minutes you can blend your own custom juice or smoothie, using just the strength of your own two legs.

But how does it work? The back wheel of the Juicinator is pressed against a much smaller wheel that turns the blades of a blender. So as people pedal the bike the blender whizzes to life. All parts used to convert the original bike are pre-loved… that’s right the entire bike is recycled to make this activity that much kinder to the environment.

The Juicinator ran for the first time this week, a very exciting moment, and the verdict so far has been glowing. Guests have loved the bike as well as the delicious smoothies that have resulted. We now have two recipe suggestions for people to try:

BP’s Favourite      
1 Handful Berries                                           
2 Oranges (squeezed or chopped)  
2 Kiwis                                                            
2 Spoons of Sugar 

Pinkie’s Twist

1 Handful Berries

2 Banana’s

2 Cups of Milk

1 Spoon of Sugar

Ana (PT)

Sarah-Jane (AU)

Summer 2012

Work in grounds, doing what?

About one month ago a very strong wind blew here in Kandersteg, this was the worst wind in 10 years. It came from the south and is locally called « foehn ». The next day about 340 trees were down on the ground or half standing on our campsite. This meant a lot of work for the staff team and the work parties who came to help us during spring. But what could we do?

First, the chainsaws started cutting the branches from all the tree trunks, then the trunks were cut into logs of one metre length. These were piled on the sides of the paths to leave the campsites clear. Luckily for us one week we had the Chainsaw Dutch Work Party who helped us and sped up this work.

The branches then needed to be put into the chipper. All the wood chips could be used to fill in any unsightly holes on the campsite and to create a soft ground around the challenge activities.

We then split the one meter logs and they were stored it in the wood compound areas. This wood can be used during campfires or to warm up the chalet with the woodburner.

Once the staff realised how much work needed to be done on the campsite they all came and helped during their free time. Thanks to our current team consisting of the Grounds Assistant, Sam (UK), the Maintenance Assistance, Michael (DE), with Jorge (ES) and Jesse (CA) as helpers. 

Natalia (CH)

STS Spring 2012