50 years of fighting for clean air, clean water, for climate justice. 50 years of fighting against greenhouse gas emission, plastic pollution, and deforestation. 50 Years. It’s a long time. One would think we should be close to a cleaner future, but some industries, leaders, and corporations are, or pretend to be in denial, putting profits above people.
The good news is that there are so many people, so many organizations, and even leaders that want change. It is our job as parents to be part of that movement and take action for our children and our children’s children. It is our job to protect our oceans and mountains. It is our job to educate our communities, family and friends about why climate change and plastic pollution (among other) are important issues and what we can do about them. We may not feel these issues or see them everyday; we may be healthy and still visit places that are so beautiful they seem unreal. So let’s do our part and make sure it stays that way!
So I tried to think of a few things that shouldn’t take longer than 1 hour, that we as parents can do with our children/family tomorrow to celebrate Earth Day.
- Neighborhood Cleanup (1 hour): Take a walk around your neighborhood and pick up any trash you may find. Make sure to wear protective gloves and have a plan of action ready for how you will dispose the waste collected. It can be tricky to get outside these days, so you can also organize a “house” clean up with the family! The organization Break Free From Plastic suggests you can do a brand audit in your home where you would designate a separate collection bin or bag for all the single-use packaging and products you use, and collect them all in that bin for 7 days. At the end of those 7 days, take an audit of everything in that collection bin, and record all the waste and brands on the data card. A brand audit is simply the report of all the items you found along other info like the brand name, and type of material of those items.
- MAKE A STATEMENT (30 minutes): Take some chalks, go outside and write something about Earth Day on your sidewalk or street. It can be a poem, a quote, a message or just a kind note about someone you want to thank for taking good care of our earth.
- Sign a Pledge (5 minutes): Have the family sign a pledge you care about! You can sign our Less Plastic Pledge here. Many organizations have their own such as National Geographic Kids and Clean Water Action.
- Watch a short video (about 5-10 minutes) to educate the kids about the plastic pollution crisis or other environmental issues: National Geographic, NASA Kids, NASA’s Earth Minute,
- Learn with NASA (1 hr): NASA is providing a special Earth Day 50th anniversary toolkit that has great activities, videos and articles.
- Scavenger Hunt (about 20 minutes): Take the Team Sierra Google Earth Scavenger Hunt
- ART PROJECT or SCIENCE EXPERIMENT (1 hr): I liked that Carbon Footprint Activity to teach the children what carbon footprint is and how we can reduce it. It is also a good reminder for us as parents!
- PARTICIPATE IN A VIRTUAL EVENT: Visit our Event page to find links to some of Earth Day’s events
Please post your ideas in the comment section!
Photo Credit: Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels
mygreenhome.blog 