I hope you all got to learn a little more about Kiel last week! Kiel is a really special place to live, and one of the things that makes it special is the environment. Just like the environment is a big part of your lives in Hawai'i, it's also a big part of people's lives here in Kiel. Let's find out how!
Kiel is the capital city of a state called Schleswig-Holstein. Schleswig-Holstein is a really cool state in Germany because it is right next to two different seas: the Baltic Sea (or East Sea) on the right and the North Sea on the left. Even though both seas are connected to each other, they have very different environments. The Baltic Sea is surrounded by land, so the water is usually pretty calm. Lots of people love to sail and surf on the Baltic Sea! The North Sea goes right into the Atlantic Ocean, so it is much more salty than the Baltic Sea. Since the North Sea is all open water, wind coming from the North Pole can travel really far before it gets to land. When this happens, the wind can create huge waves that are more than 30 feet tall. The tallest wave that was ever recorded on the North Sea was 70 feet -- that's twice as tall as your school building! Do you think you could surf those kinds of waves?
