America Recycles Day (ARD), November 15th, is a day dedicated to educating and encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products. Now in its 12th year, ARD has grown to include millions of supporters who have pledged to increase their recycling habits and to buy products made with recycled materials. Volunteer coordinators across America are organizing events in their schools and communities to educate and inspire others to recycle.
To become better informed about recycling, to take the recycling pledge, or to sign up to create your own ARD event, visit www.americarecyclesday.org.
I hate to break it to you, but it’s about that time of year. Time to put away the golf clubs and bbq and break out the # 2 pencils. While you are preparing this year’s curriculum you might want to consider what a big influence you can be in getting kids to think green. Planet Green has a comprehensive guide to going green at school that can help you accomplish small tasks that make a big impact. Check out their Top Green Teacher Tips for ideas on greening your classroom. For inspiration in implementing green into your curriculum, take a look at their 15 Projects for Green School Teachers.
Mother’s and Father’s Day may have come and gone, but it’s never too late to help out with the household chores. In the summer, you can get the sun and wind to pitch in too by hanging your clothes outside to dry. Sun and wind are both renewable resources, which means they will never run out! Line drying one load of laundry prevents about 3.35 pounds of C02 emissions by saving the electricity it would take to run the dryer.
Butterflies can be deceiving. Their beautiful patterns and delicate wings make them seem like they are all for show, but they are actually very important to the health of gardens. When they visit a flower to drink its nectar, they help to pollinate it by spreading pollen from one part of the flower to another. Insects who do this are known as pollinators, and ensure that our plants continue to grow month after month and year after year.
Did you know that you can observe beautiful butterflies right from your own backyard? Here’s what you do…
– Butterflies love nectar! Talk to your local nursery to find out which nectar flowers are native to your community. Plant a variety in your yard or in in pots on your window sill.
– Slurp, slurp. If you look very carefully, you’ll see that butterflies drink nectar through their proboscis, a long straw-like snout.
– There are over 700 species of butterflies in North America, how many can you find in your neighborhood?
You can also observe butterflies at public museums and gardens all over the country. To find an exhibit in your area, click here.
Springtime means cleaning out closets to make room for summer clothes. But what do you do with all those old pairs of shoes? Believe it or not, even shoes are recyclable! They are chopped up and made into new basketball courts, tracks, fields and playgrounds. Drop those old sneakers off at a shoe recycling center and you might just find yourself running on top of them next year.
Did you know that last week was Arbor Day? On Arbor Day, people all around the country plant trees in their communities. If you haven’t planted a tree, it’s not too late! Trees do many wonderful things for the planet, like filtering carbon dioxide from the air and giving us oxygen to breath. When planted near a house, trees provide shade that cools the home in the summer, helping to save energy. Planting trees native to your area is a good idea. They require little maintenance and provide homes and food for the creatures in their ecosystem. To learn more about how you can get started planting trees visit the Arbor Day Foundation.
Today we have great suggestion from “Sam’s Mom” about raising chickens with kids. Thanks for sharing!
When my child’s Montessori school teacher brought an incubator and chicken eggs to the classroom, we were not aware of the profound impact it would have on our daughter and the important life lessons we want for our children. She patiently watched the eggs in anticipation of the day the shell would give forth to the little fuzzy bits of life. She picked out her favorites, and helped with feeding and caring for the chicks in the classroom. We were asked to adopt some of the chickens, and couldn’t resist. Sam cared for her chicks under a heat lamp in the utility room, and once they were old enough to leave the heat of them lamp, we moved them outside to the chicken coop. Sam soon found the chickens to be less friendly with their newfound independence, and her relationship with the chickens evolved. She helped with watering and feeding the chickens and watched them mature into egg laying hens. She was proud to have a rewarding relationship with the hens she raised from chicks, and told everyone she knew about the hens she fed, who fed her in return. Wow! At three years old, our daughter learned the importance of caring for animals, and learned acceptance of how relationships with animals and nature evolve with new meaning. But, one of my personal favorite lessons, was that of sustainable living. Our chickens eat feed, and a lot of very delicious leftover bits of organic and whole foods, they live on our land, and the eggs they lay for us, are healthy, local, and appreciated. The hens are part of our daily ritual, an extension of our family, and the springboard for other green topics in our household, including recycling, composting (both table scraps and chicken poop), growing our own fruits and vegetables and water conservation. The rewards, low cost and ease of raising chickens is one every family should consider. Go green with chickens for children!
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!
