Watch your little bud grow!
At long last, Spring has sprung! How do we know that spring is here for good? Yes, the weather may feel warmer, but as we all know, good weather is no sure bet in March. We know that spring is here at the first sight of buds poking through the ground and from the branches of trees.
Fun Springtime Activity:
- Find a bud that has just begun to grow. Tie a colorful string loosely below it so that you can be sure to find it again.
- Every day draw a picture or take a photography of your little bud. If you can, draw or photograph the bud so it is the same size in each picture.
- Once the bud has fully bloomed, stack all your drawings or photographs together. Flip through your stack and watch your little buddy grow all over again!
Hey Kids! Too Young to Vote?
You might have been too young to vote in the recent presidential election, but don’t let that stop you from voting with your light switch for Earth Hour 2009. On Saturday, March 28 at 8:30 PM, as many as 1 billion people around the world will turn off their lights in a universal vote to stop global warming. The World Wildlife Fund will present these votes at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark this year. At this important meeting, governments from all over the world will gather to decide how to fight global warming.
Earth Hour began in Sydney, Australia in 2007. 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. The following year, Earth Hour went global, with 50 million people world wide sending a powerful message against global warming. Important landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Sydney Opera House, Rome’s Colosseum, and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all went black.
This year, you can VOTE EARTH just by switching off your lights.
Little Green Reader Question:
I heard that batteries are bad for the environment and shouldn’t be thrown out with the regular trash. How do I get rid of them so that they don’t cause any harm?
Recycle your used batteries
Resident Expert Answer:
You are right, batteries do contain chemicals like mercury, lead, cadmium and nickel that can harm you and the environment when they are thrown out with the trash. Batteries can release toxic substances into the ground as well as into the air when burned in garbage incinerators. Luckily, today’s batteries contain far less toxic materials then they did way back when your parents were kids. Many towns are even advising their residents to simply throw batteries out with the trash. But until batteries are made out of soybeans, there is still some risk of hazardous materials contaminating our soil, water and air. And like all other garbage, when recycling is an option, that’s your best choice. Recycling saves resources like recovered plastic and metals that can be made into new batteries.
There are two good options for recycling your batteries. You can visit earth911.com to search for places in your area that will recycle your batteries. Some stores like Whole Foods Market and Radio Shack are starting to accept them.
If you can’t find a place in your area that will accept them, you can order a battery recycling kit, like the iRecycle Kit from Battery Solutions and start collecting them right at home. Once you have enough batteries to fill the box, ship it pre-paid to their recycling center. This is a great community service project that you can set up at your school, club or church. You will make a lot of people, who just like you are bewildered with how dispose of their batteries, very grateful!
Do you have any ideas you would like to share with our readers? Would you like to inspire us, like Lilly Tougas did, with your own going green stories? Click here to share!
Replace incandescent bulbs with energy efficient ones
Switch to Energy Saving Light Bulbs
One of the best things you can do for the planet is also one of the simplest. If every home in America replaced one traditional incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (known as a CFL), we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year, and prevent the CO2 emissions equivalent of nearly 800,000 cars from entering the atmosphere. These energy-saving bulbs last 13 times longer and use only a quarter of the energy as traditional light bulbs. Now just imagine what a difference it would make if you changed all of the light bulbs in your house!
