Seven Words Kids Should Know

Image by Adventures in Librarianship via Flickr

The Oxford Junior Dictionary raised some eyebrows recently when they swapped some words in the new edition of the dictionary - chatroom, voicemail, and blog were added to the dictionary. Of course, they can't make the book heavier so those words came at the expense of words like dandelion, fern, porpoise, spinach, and brook. Apparently, words related to nature (everything from weeds to flowers to vegetables) didn't fair well in the update. They did add a few new words that I like - biodegradable, drought, and endangered.

That got me thinking about what words we should be teaching our children as they grow up. They hear the word "green" all the time in the media, but what about words that more accurately describe the issues our planet is facing? My choice for words to talk to my kids about are listed below. To see kid-friendly defintions, as well as many other words, click the link for each word which will take you to an Ecology Dictionary on PlanetPals.

• sustainability

  Image via Wikipedia

• climate change
• greenhouse gas
• conservation
• carbon footprint
• deforestation
• fossil fuel

My kids know just a few of these words - carbon footprint because we measured ours recently and climate change because they know about the challenge the polar bears are having - so we definitely have some room to grow our minds this summer. What words do you want your children to know?