What Can Kids Do?

One of the commenters last week for Earth Day was a teacher who asked for some tips on what her students can do to help protect the Earth. Her kids are in high school, but I think action can come from kids of all ages. Great question!

Our children are out and about in the community every day and I think it's a great opportunity for them to look around and see what they would change to make it a better place.

* Start with your own house and look at how environmentally-friendly you are there. Are you recycling everything you can? Take the initiative to go to your local waste company's website and see exactly what options are available. Do they have an easy composting option? Are there other materials that can be easily recycled somewhere other than your curbside program?

* Take a look at the local businesses that you frequent. How environmentally friendly are they? One child I know took Earth Day as an opportunity to talk to his tennis club about alternatives to the styrofoam cups they use at their latte stand. He went armed with some facts about why alternatives might be better. I haven't heard the results of the talk, but maybe that will be a future blog post.

* Think before you buy. Think about how far that product has travelled (how much oil did that use) and how it's packaged. Think about how much you need it. Think about other alternatives that might be more environmentally-friendly.

* Take action publicly. I was recently impressed with a Letter to the Editor regarding climate change and its effect on right whales. It was written by two middle schoolers and published right alongside all the other opinion pieces.

I think the easiest way for kids to get involved is to follow their passions. Whether it is something they love (animals, the ocean, etc.) that needs to be protected or something they see that just doesn't seem right (e.g. pollution generated in their own community), they can have an impact.

What do you think? What have you seen kids doing lately to make a difference?

Thanks!

Wow - all those comments on yesterday's Earth Day post are a blogger's dream! Everyone wins! You've given me motivation - and a lot of ideas to go work on. Now, invite your friends to stop by too. Come back to share your thoughts and keep the conversation going.

Winners:
(Note: PSP stands for Pumpkin Seed Packet! My mom grew some great pumpkins last year so we're passing along some of the seeds)

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss - Becky, Stacey, Aija, and Sally
PSP & World Wildlife Foundation bookmark - Angela
PSP & World Wildlife Foundation bookmark - Gina
PSP & World Wildlife Foundation Bday Calendar - Debbie
PSP & Handcrafted Pewter Oak Tree Lapel Pin - Beth
Flower Bulbs - Camille
The Original Natural Wheat Bag - Cheryl

I'll be getting the prizes out to you next week so be looking in the mail (or on your doorstep!) Thanks for the comments and to Aija who also donated the bulbs!

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day! In honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, I thought we should celebrate here at Our Kids' Earth. It's been just over a year since I started this blog so I thought we would celebrate by giving away some presents to YOU, the readers!

I have ~ 10 gifts and I'll draw names randomly from the comments to this post. Of course, my secret motive is to get more people to comment on the blog - I've been doing a lot of the talking so far. Now I want to hear from you - and not just today! You have your choice of answering one of two questions:

Question #1: What would you like to see on this blog? Is there any question you would like answered, any issue you would like to discuss?

Question #2: What one thing would you like to change in your life to help the Earth?

Most of the prizes are small, but I am giving away 4 copies of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss - my all-time favorite Earth-related kids book! I also have seeds, bookmarks, calendars. Who knows what else I can find if I get lots of comments!

I'll post the winners tomorrow and then you can email me your snail mail address. If you are new to posting, you can post under "Anonymous" and still include your name in the text of your post. You can also get a Google account in just a few seconds and post under your name that way.

If you want to know what your community is doing to celebrate Earth Day, click here.

Happy Earth Day!

A Day of Discovery on the Water

I had a chance to join my son's 4th grade class last week on a fabulous field trip. We spent the day on Puget Sound with Pacific Marine Research learning about watersheds, plankton, water sampling (below), marine mammals and the importance of keeping Puget Sound healthy. The scientists did a great job keeping the kids engaged and everyone walked away with a deeper appreciation for all that life teeming in the waters - even if it is too small to see!

This was one of those field trips that was definitely as educational for me as the kids. We learned about the two different kinds of plankton - phytoplankton and zooplankton - and had a chance to see them up close and personal after taking some water samples from the bottom of Puget Sound. Phytoplankton are plants and zooplankton are animals - once you get them under the microscope you can really tell the difference! Many of the phytoplankton (see right) looked like bracelets - no eyes, legs, or claws.

The zooplankton looked much scarier, unless you keep in mind that we were picking them up with an eyedropper. Here is an arrow worm, copepod, and jellyfish.

One of the coolest parts of the trip was when their scuba diver walked on the sea floor with a video camera and showed us his view. It was much brighter down there than I would have expected and we saw sea urchins, sea cucumbers, fish, and starfish. The biggest hit with the kids was when they tried to get some interaction between two starfish - The Death Star and the Sun Star. They cued up the Darth Vader music (this must be a regular occurrence in these waters since they had the music on hand!) and proved that even though the Death Star might eat other starfish, he's usually too slow.

Biggest lesson for the day? It's a beautiful world down there and it's our job to protect it. The kids were told the most important word for the day was "watershed." There are 4 million people living in the Puget Sound watershed, the area between the Cascades and Olympics, and all the water and snow that lands in our midst eventually runs off into Puget Sound. Our actions determine how clean that water is.

Eating Local on Vacation

The past few months I've thought a lot about eating local, but this was my first chance to think about it while on a trip. Hawaii was ideal for it because everything is so expensive. We had a full kitchen in our condo so we could eat in whenever we wanted. I love to eat out, but definitely not three times a day with kids!

While I know our Honey Nut Cheerios were definitely not a local buy, we did manage to try out lots of local food - ahi, shrimp, mahi mahi, poke, pineapple, milk, Love's bread, chips. It was a great way to broaden our food horizons, learn more about the local culture, and save money!

Definitely something we'll think about on future trips! What about you - what local foods have you discovered while travelling?

Hotels Go Green = Saving Green

Hotels are starting to figure out that they can use their green efforts as a marketing feature, but I think the real reasons hotels are making changes is they've learning it can save them money.

Last week we stayed at the Westin Ocean Resort Villas North in Ka'anapali Beach, Hawaii (one of those unplanned school auction purchases!). Upon check-in, we were notified that we would be receiving one "tidy" service during our week, but no daily cleaning. I've seen hotels with the signs about leaving your towels hanging if you don't want them changed or placing a card on the bed if you don't want new linens, but once-a-week "tidy" service was new for me. Basically, after three days, they'll come in to change your sheets and towels and take out your garbage. No cleaning at all while you're there (but they do provide a broom and dustpan should your bathroom start to look as sandy as the beach!)


Actually, it was fine with me because I hate having to vacate a room in the morning because the cleaning people are ready to get to work. The funny thing though is that the hotels are pitching this as this big way they're going green, and I'm thinking... yeah, it's definitely saving some green. It is a HUGE savings in labor, water, electricity, and cleaning products.

Saving money is the best motivator for a corporation to go green so I'm not surprised it's the bottom line that's starting to drive changes. Their restaurants and bars also featured new compostable cups. You can see on the cup it says "Made from Corn." Again, I applaud the hotel for their efforts, but in this case, they're only halfway there. The cups are compostable, but the hotel doesn't actually compost them. They still go off to a landfill somewhere for now. Baby steps...

We did like the fact that the hotel offered recycling centers in several locations around the hotel and we took advantage of those. We also tried to do our part to keep the beach clean by picking up the trash and recyclables we found. We found a large bag of cans which I'm guessing someone just forgot to take them home at the end of their party. We took care of the last step so all those cans didn't end up getting swept back into the ocean.

All in all, Hawaii is a beautiful place and as guests on the island, I think we owe it to them to keep it beautiful!

Another New World: Humpback Whales

One of the best parts of Hawaii this time of year is that it is home to thousands of humpback whales who have come to give birth to their calves. You can see them right from the beach and even while driving along the coastal highway (it's best to be the passenger in this case!)

This picture is of a breach that I captured from the beach. I zoomed in on the picture so it's a little fuzzy, but I think it is a baby based on the size and that large dark spot just underneath the whale in the picture. I'm guessing that's the mother - they are about 45 feet long.

I was so intrigued by the whales, I wanted to get out on the water to see them so we went out on whale watching trip on our last day. The pontoon boats are roughly the same size as the adult humpbacks - a fact that was not lost on us when the whale decided to swim under the boat!

Hawaii whale protection guidelines dictate that boats can't approach within 100 yards of the whale, but when they decide to swim towards you, all bets are off. You just kill the motor and sit quietly till their done messing with you!

We didn't witness any breaches or spyhops (that's when they bob up and down in the water - essentially "spying" on their surroundings), but had a long, peaceful visit with a mother, calf, and the two Bottlenose Dolphins that seemed to be spending the afternoon with them.

The whales stay in Hawaii from roughly November to May and once their calves are strong enough they'll swim back to Alaska. Apparently, they mate in Hawaii too because when the whales are back next year there will be another round of calves.

Another New World: Underground Crab Network

You know how you can walk past the same place several times and never notice something and then once you see it, you can't believe how obvious it was?

Last week in Hawaii, my eight-year-old and I went for an early morning walk on the beach. Jetlag seemed to affect each of us differently - he had the I-can't-sleep-past-4am version of it! After a long walk along the sandy beach, I spotted a crab. Just as I pointed it out to my son, the crab ran down a hole. As we waited for him to come out, another one (or him?) popped up from another hole.

Suddenly, we realized the beach was covered with these little holes and tiny little crabs popping in and out of their underground network. We never saw that many crabs or their homes after that, but that morning we must had perfect timing to see them all rising for their morning stroll on the beach. Some quick research tells me most people call them sand crabs and sunset is the best time to spot them - apparently, in our case sunrise worked fine as well.

Most of the holes were tiny (see comparison with size one foot at left), but we had to wonder what kind of crab lived in the one giant hole we found. Look at the regular sized hole at the top and then the one 20x bigger at the bottom. Thankfully, we didn't meet him at the beach!

A Whole New World

Rain forests. Deserts. Mountains. Oceans. Tropics. Our planet seems to have an endless amount of variety. Even within a single country or state you can find all different kinds of landscape.

It's always fun to discover a new part of the planet you've never seen and this week has been a great time of discovery for my family. We're in Hawaii and, while the white sand beaches were my initial focus, we've also found lots of other dramatic landscapes.

Yesterday, we came about as close as you can come to a lunar landscape without leaving the Earth. We visited Haleakala National Park on Maui - at 10,023 feet it is a long way from the sandy beaches! We figured out along the way that it's actually the highest elevation my kids have ever been. After a two mile descent into the crater and the uphill return hike, we all noticed the effects of elevation on our lungs!
We also learned a little about volcanoes while we were there - the Haleakala "crater" is actually made up of many cinder cone volcanoes (which have had eruptions), but the valley is actually the result of erosion by wind, water, and landslides rather than a large eruption.

The other really fun new world we've discovered is underwater. We'll see if those underwater camera pictures develop for a future blog...

What about you? What new landscape is waiting to be discovered in your backyard - a rain forest? high plains desert? a cave? an underwater oasis?

Signs of Spring

It is just the beginning of spring, but already there are signs that winter is over. In my area, we seem to be getting the April showers and May flowers altogether, but I won't complain.


Most of the Farmer's Markets are still closed, but I just learned of a special early spring market

Image by NatalieMaynor via Flickr

in my neighborhood that I'm going to check out. I know many of my readers are in Snohomish County so I'll put in a quick plug for the Everett Community College Farmers Market on Wednesdays through June 2nd. To find one in another area, check out Local Harvest.

Another tip for some of my neighbors interested in fresh, local chicken: A friend of mine is pre-selling her Cornish Cross meat birds this summer and is taking orders now (before she even orders the chicks!) Check out First Hand Food for all the details. We had her first birds last year and they were very tasty.

Oh - and another sign it's Spring... It's April Fool's Day! I sent my boys to school today with sandwiches disguised in Starburst and Skittles jellybean bags. I already got an email from one of their teachers saying my son fell for it. I can imagine the moment when I was the coolest mom in the world for sending him to school with a giant bag of candy. Hmm... I think I better be ready for payback this afternoon!