Justice Cruzan

Artist's Statement

As a Choral Music Education major, I took this question into the perspective of “How would I tell this story, or any piece of it, to better connect my students to its importance?”. I want to teach choir to elementary children, and I immediately thought of all of those songs we used tolearn to help us remember what our teachers had taught us. I wanted to choose a topic that is broad and simple enough for children to understand, but also one that would give them the desire to change the planet for the better. Another goal of mine was that if the children liked the song enough, they would sing it at home and their parents would hear it and want to make a change. So I decided to choose the topic of greenhouse gases.

To begin this project, I went to a website that Professor Davies showed us, https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/, where you can learn about the greenhouse effect and the four major greenhouse gasses. I took the information from this website and transformed it into my song, The Four Major Greenhouse Gases. I started with the chorus. I wanted an upbeat and light song, so I tried to make the chorus as memorable as possible. Then I wrote the verses, one about how the gasses are put into the air, one about what happens when there are too many, and the last about what we can do to help our planet. I performed it for my roommates, who received it well. Funny enough, they even sing it around the apartment sometimes. I feel as though I have met my goals for this project, and once I do become a teacher I may very well play this for my students because I believe it to be a success.

Lyrics:

(Chorus)

Too many...
Greenhouse gases are no good
Carbon dioxide in neighborhoods
Next we have some methane gas
It comes out when cows eat grass
Nitrous oxide is a king
Laughing gas it's the same thing
The last gas that you will see
Is chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs
Four major greenhouse gases (x3)
These are the four major greenhouse gases

(Verse 1)

Carbon dioxide is released through natural processes
Burning fossil fuels and deforestation also causes it
Livestock animals emit methane gas from digestion
Fossil fuel production also leaks the gas that's in question
Nitrous oxide comes from different farming practices
And commercial and organic fertilizer productions
Unnatural chemical compounds are chlorofluorocarbons
They are made of entirely industrial origins

(Chorus)

(Verse 2)

But why should we even care
About all this stuff in the air
Greenhouse gases traps in the sun’s heat
Too many and we’ll be in defeat
The earth will warm up and it will cause
Melting ice caps and lots of rainfall
The human race would be through
But there are some things that we can do

(Verse 3)

Carpool, walk or bike, or use public transport
Eat more vegetables, try being locally sourced
Please remember to recycle
Throw away less food
Reduce, repair and reuse
Use wind or solar energy
Make sure to live sensibly
BECAUSE!

(Chorus)