France is a country in Europe filled to the brim with a “rich culture and an impressive history” according to senior Hunter Cole. For a country with over 1,000 years of experience and wisdom, it comes with no surprise that they know a thing or two about running a country, said the senior. 

     Right now, the North Harford French classes are one of many French classes in the US participating in and helping with the “Earth Optimism” project ran by The Smithsonian, which is a project that connects French and American schools in one place to discuss issues involving the environment and in the community to “create change” according to Junior Julia Eakes and French teacher Larissa Arist. They do so by creating Sustainability between France and The United States. 

      Arist describes sustainability as a way to create a “healthy community” and maintain a “good environment” for us in the US. She and her students are communicating with a high school, located northeast of Paris, through a system called Twinspace. This system is practically a large-scale message board, a place where users can post ideas and others can comment on said ideas. 

     Students at North Harford participating in this project say they are quite happy with the goal that World Optimism is shooting for. Eakes believes the conversations concerning the environment and the community are “conversations we need to have.” She also went on to comment that “it’s a super cool opportunity” to go through with a project like this one.

     Other students from around the school have heard wind of the actions of the Earth Optimism. The senior is in support of the project saying “it’s a good way to understand and learn from another country, who has a different angle than us.” 

     Cole would later comment about cooperating with the French of all countries in the world, stating that “the French have this way of doing things with a lot of grace.” According to Cole, “if it’s French, usually it’s of good quality.” Despite having no relation with any French classes at North Harford, the senior is completely in support of the project. 

     Cole brought up that there was a possibility for a misunderstanding though, considering that the US and France speak two completely different languages. According to Arist, this is zero problem to her and her students. 

 “Most communication is conducted in English, but some is in French,” she says. This can make things easy for the French considering an average of 57% of the people of France have a reasonable proficiency when it comes to speaking English according to thelocal.fr, an English news outlet located in France.