Earth Day 2008

Today is Earth Day. Peanut’s school usually has a day long event but not this year. I was sad to learn that nothing was planned for the whole school, parents and community to take part in. I don’t know the reasoning of this. It could have to do with the fact that Career Day is this Friday and that’s a day long event. I asked her if she at least did anything in her class about this special day. No, not even in her class.

The positive thing is that Peanut know a great deal about living “green”. Part of the reasons for teaching her at a young age about saving electricity, recycling and saving water has to do with my desire to have a healthy earth for her when she grows up. Part of it is due to saving money. But mostly it is because of our Christianity. I believe that God created the world and everything in it (I’m not getting into a discussion of creationism if the world was created in 6 days or over millions of years, it doesn’t matter, God created it).

Where I live in Florida, we use recycling bins for newspapers and plastics only. If we want to recycle glass we take it to large recycling bins located at store parking lots and other areas. People who don’t have bins can do this too. We also are very concerned about water conservation. Watering your lawn is set for certain days only. We own a rain detector so that our sprinklers won’t go in during the rain.

In our home we turn off lights and tv’s when they are not in use. We also take cell phone or other chargers as they use electricity when plugged in even when not used. We try to re-use items as much as possible. For example if a plastic box is nice we’ll use it to store items. I have tons of Lego plastic tubs that Peanut stores her toys in. We do as much as we can and always try to learn more.

Here’s a link for children to learn more about Earth Day from Kaboose. There’s games, crafts, songs, information on the history of Earth Day and activities that you can do at home with your child.

Teach the next generation!

photo credit: LollyKnit