New Recycling Centres

For many people it does not sound that exciting, but here at KISC it has happened... we have new recycling centres all over our buildings!!

As I am one of the many Staff who deal daily with rubbish and recycling I am always keen to make our system more eco friendly, and, at the same time easy for our guests.

Swiss recycling is a very complex system and different from systems in other countries. This is why we try to make it easy and educational for our guests from all over the world.

But what’s new?

All our recycling centres are now exactly the same- and colour coded! 

The different containers have examples on them so it is no longer necessary to read the English to find the right container!

Happy recycling!

Michael (DE)

Maintenance Manager

Snow & Ice

Coming from a hot Mediterranean country when I think about ice it`s usually in a glass with a nice cocktail but this week I learnt there`s much more to it! After ice skating for the first time during our last staff night out and enjoying every second of it, I was looking forward to the Snow & Ice Combo up on the Frunden glacier with some other staff members and our awesome guides Eoin (IE) and Darren(ZA).

 

Glaciers are pretty awesome things and here’s 10 facts about them:

1. They are persistent bodies of ice that form when snow and ice don’t melt and keep accumulating for centuries.
2. Glaciers are constantly moving downwards or flow like a frozen river.
3. The Taku Glacier in Alaska is the thickest glacier in the world; almost 1.5km thick!
4. Glacier melt comes from both the ice that’s melting at the top of the glacier due to the sun’s heat but also from the bottom due to the heat from friction caused by the flow.
5. As glaciers move they eat away at the surrounding rock to eventually form valleys that have a U shape like the Gasterntal!
6. Crevasses form due to differences in glacier velocity as parts move at different speeds and directions, forces cause two sections to break apart, opening the crack of a crevasse.
7. The fastest glacier moves between 20-30m a day!
8. Even the planet Mars has glaciers!
9. When walking on a glacier one has to be very careful to avoid going over snow bridges that might have formed over crevasses since these are unstable and one might fall through!
10. You should spend more time on glaciers because it’s great fun!

 

 

During our time on the glacier we learnt how to walk safely being tied to each other, using ice axes and crampons. Progress across a glacier is sometimes slow because one has to negotiate crevasse jumps and check if the ice is stable enough for people to walk on. We also simulated a crevasse rescue where we were lowered into a crevasse and the remaining team rigged up a system to lift the person back up to safety which is what would be done in a real life situation.

 

So now you know a bit more about glaciers and how awesome they are I ask you to do one simple thing to give them a hand! Always switch off the lights when you’re not using them because global warming is a glacier’s worst enemy as it causes accelerated melting! So go out there and save those glaciers!

 

See you on the ice!

 

Jean-Marc (MT)

STS Summer 2012

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