New York City  9 / 11 / 01

    We started this school year with mayhem. Here in New York City, the World Trade Center was attacked on September 11th.  So this Christmas feels different because the United States is fighting a war against terrorists.  But we should not be xenophobic and be afraid of people just because they are different from us. We wanted to show examples of how people can get along with each other, and wars can end, and how enemies can become friends.
Agnes

    The World Trade Center attack was a tragedy.  Now our President is bombing Afghanistan.  We are also dropping food to help the innocent people there, but a lot of them are being left homeless. We got a satellite picture of the sun rising over Afghanistan from the Internet. I just wish we could have peace.
Kellisa

     People say that the war is fought against the terrorists because their religion is different from ours.  But we found out that more people worship Christianity than any other religion in the world. Jesus did not teach hate.  Islam is the second most popular religion, and Islam does not teach hate either.
Evanna

Religious Differences
    When we made the graph of the different religions of the world, we saw that more people, 33%, worship Jesus Christ than any other religious leader.  But we also realized that the rest of the people in the world, 67%, don’t worship Jesus.  That does not mean that we should argue with the other people.  We should be tolerant of the way that other people worship.  All religions are similar because they teach people to be good and cooperate with each other.
Marcelis
Religious Similarities
    We saw statues of Buddha when we went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art.  We were interested in him because his ears were very long and they had big holes in them.  Buddha was once a prince in India.  His name was Siddhartha and he was very rich.  But he decided that money cannot buy happiness so he gave away all of his riches to the poor.  He used to wear a lot of jewelry and his heavy gold earrings stretched his ears.
Kenneth
     Buddha lived about 500 years before Jesus was born, but their ideas were similar.  Both wanted to heal the poor and they wanted people to live in peace.
Jahmel

     Both Buddha and Jesus were enlightened.  That means that they had knowledge to share with other people.  Artists showed them with haloes of light around their heads to represent their wisdom.
Evanna

       We saw the Peaceable Kingdom at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.  It shows children who look like angels in heaven and they are with wild animals.  The idea for the painting comes from the bible where it says that in the Lord’s Kingdom even wild animals will not eat each other and there will be no fighting or killing anymore.
Agnes
           In the background of the picture are Pilgrims and Native Americans.  Edward Hicks put them there to remind us of the first Thanksgiving when they were sharing and not at war.  He painted William Penn who treated the Delaware Indians fairly and made a peace treaty with them.
Evanna
Pearl Harbor  12 / 7 / 41
    Today people in Japan and the United States like each other, but in World War II we did terrible things to one another.  In 1941 the Japanese came out of nowhere and bombed our ships in a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
Jordan
Hiroshima  8 / 6 / 45
      Our country invented the atomic bomb.  It was the most powerful weapon that was ever dropped on people.  No one could survive near where it was dropped and many innocent people were left homeless when we destroyed their cities.
Kenneth

    Today we buy and sell things to Japan.  It is called foreign exchange and we are trading partners in the global economy.
We are friends and it’s much better to have peace than war.
Kellisa


Foreign Exchange

Linked Web Sites

Atomic Bomb
http://atomicbombmuseum.org/

Earth and Moon Viewer
http://www.fourmilab.to/earthview/

Edward Hicks, Peaceable Kingdom
http://www.tfaoi.com/newsm1/n1m348.htm

Images of Jesus
http://www.christusrex.org/

Lexus
http://lexus.com

PearlHarbor
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/ph-oa.htm

Religions
http://www.adherents.com/

Sega
http://www.sega.com/

Tibetan Buddhism
http://dharma-haven.org/tibetan/buddhism.html#Tibetan%20Art

World Trade Center Photographs
http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/gallery/

Mr.Gary Greenberg, Teacher
Grade 5
Public School 241
976 President Street
Brooklyn New York,11225 USA