Two Years of Progress

Two years ago I interviewed my niece asking her about what she had learned about the environment. You can see her answers from 2 years ago here. You will see some of her answers changed but others have stayed the same (I was surprised by what stayed the same).

The picture she drew 2 years ago that I use for my avatar

What do you learn about the environment in school? at home?
We learn about the environment in social studies like how we need to recycle. If we throw out a can 1000s of years it will still be here. Our whole planet will be a trash yard if we do not recycle. In science we learn about nature (not really environmentalism). At home my Mom recycles… She just says we need to but she does not tells us why. My Dad does not recycle, he said it is a lot of work.

Do you recycle at school? at home?

Yes, paper and the water bottles. I followed up by asking if she could bring reusable water bottles to school she said “yes. We are allowed to bring reusable and plastic water bottles to school and I do.”

What do you think you could do to save more water?

Shut water off when actually brushing our teeth. Flush the toilet only when you have used it. (I had to follow-up this quote by asking why else you would flush the toilet) Well we play around by flushing it with nothing in it at school. There is a game flush the toilet, one kid goes to the bathroom flushes the toilet and them comes back and hits someones hand and they run back to the bathroom to flush it. We see how many kids can go to the bathroom in recess.

Do you think you could use less electricity? How?

Leave all the lights and tv off when you leave the house. Sometimes we forget to do that when we are leaving. Unplug stuff when not using it because it still uses power when it is plugged in.

Would you ever drive a small car?

No, I would never drive a small car… Having a small car is dangerous, if you get into an accident you would be seriously injured.

Which do you like better hot or cold weather? Why?

Like cold weather I do not like to play soccer in the heat. You sweat a lot. You save water in the cold because you do not have to drink extra water.

What else do you do to save the environment?

Turn off lights, unplug cell phone charger (nine year olds now!!), recycle, use one piece of paper for a two page writing assignment I write on both sides.

What animal do you think needs our help the most? Why?

Bees because they are dying a lot, maybe because they are stinging people. But in also think that because flowers are dying they do not have anything to live off of.

• What have you learned about the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico?

The teachers have not mentioned it in school. They said things are dying. I have learned more about it on the news. It surprised me our teachers did not teach us about it, they told us not to worry about it. (Asked if she had learned about it in Social Studies) NO but I like social studies, I like learning about the environment it in that class not in science class because I do not like science.

• What do you want to learn about more?

I want to learn more about how people can make stuff out of recycled stuff.

I then asked her if kids bring their utensils from home or use the plastic utensils from school?

Some kids do bring utensils from home but most people use the school stuff.

Would it be weird for a kids to bring utensils from home?

Not weird to bring utensils from home. I would bring them from home. I do not think anyone would make fun of anyone for that.

Then we did the math on how many utensils would be saved from the landfills if everyone did this.

The Math of Utensil Garbage From Her School

600 kids
120 days of school (assuming that most people do not eat a meal that requires a utensil every day of school)
1 utensil a day (some days here may be a fork and spoon but I thought we should underestimate)
72,000 Total Utensils end up in the landfills

That is just one school there are 3 other schools in her small town!!! Think about this across the country!!!

Ask your kids these questions and send me their answers at greenforu (at) hotmail.com

Earth Hour In Just 4 Days!

Earth Hour is Saturday March 27th at 8:30 pm local time!

Last year and the year before I participated in Earth Hour and I hope more people do this year too. Two years ago we went to our neighbors house and had a nice dinner by candlelight (we made sure our lights were out before we walked over to their house).

There are lots of fun things you can do for Earth Hour:

• Have your friends over for a barbecue. Cooler full of drinks and a grill to cook the food, who needs electricity.
• For those of us in the north light a fire in the fireplace, make smores and just enjoy the company of the ones you are with.
• Have friends over and play board games by candlelight (or flashlight).
• Camp out in the backyard.
• If there is a planetarium near your home contact them. Many around the country are doing special star gazing events or go to for more information: http://stardate.org/nightsky/ or http://skymaps.com/downloads.html
• Try and organize a neighborhood wide block party or barbecue and get everyone to shut off their lights. It would be a good way to get to know your neighbors right!
• You could use the time to change all the light-bulbs if you have not done so already or make other energy efficient changes in your home.
• If you have kids let them have a sleep over and do fun things with the kids by candle light to help them learn more about the environment. The EPA has a great website for kid activities http://www.epa.gov/kids/index.htm

How to prepare:

• Shut off all your lights (this is the basic way to celebrate)
• Unplug all your lights, appliances… everything… yes you will need to re-program your alarm clock, your cable box will take a half an hour to load the guides back into your box, and you will have to climb behind your furniture and move things to do this but this step is what really saves the energy. As you probably know even when your lights and appliances are not on they are still using electricty.

Here is some news about Earth Hour from WWF:

26 States
In the U.S., 26 states have officially pledged to observe Earth Hour: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Is your state missing from this list? Get your state on board!

Hundreds of Monuments
Lights will be dimmed at some of the U.S.’s most iconic landmarks including Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, St. Louis’ Gateway Arch, Sea World in Orlando, the Las Vegas Strip, New York’s Empire State Building and Chrysler Building, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Washington D.C.’s National Cathedral, California’s Santa Monica Pier, and the Space Needle in Seattle. Internationally the Brandenburg Gate, Eiffel Tower, Hiroshima Peace Memorial, India Gate, and the world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE are all participating.

Look outside on Saturday night and see how many of your neighbors have their lights out! It would be great if there was more marketing on the environmental organizations part for people to display that they were going to participate ahead of time so that there might be some discussion in your neighborhood about what Earth Hour is.

Follow me on Twitter @greenforu

Thoughts for Earth Day

As we start to celebrate Earth Day, here is a short list of good and bad things that are happening for the environment. This is the first of a few posts today in celebration of Earth Day.  

Good

More people are employed by the wind power industry than coal mines- Definitely a shift in the right direction!

EPA targets green house gases- The EPA is finally taking a real look at how we can reduce our green house gases.

Bottled water sales decreasing- Since only about 25 years ago people used to just drink from a water fountain when they were thirsty the waste created from bottled water sales has had a huge impact on society. Now, maybe because of the economy, sales are on the decline. People need to start bringing their tap water in a water bottle with them rather than purchasing their water.

Bad

Still no wind power off the coast of US- Alot of states are talking about, acting like they are getting close…etc. but currently there are no actually wind turbines off the coast of the US.

People still drive huge cars and good alternative vehicles are not available for sale.

Oil prices went down, good because of the economy, but bad for the environment… people were really looking at their oil consumption when the price was almost double what it is now.

I hope you check back through out the day to see what other thoughts, advice, and resources I have  for Earth Day.