Happy Birthday Earth Day and Green Up Day!

Happy Earth Day!! Not only is today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, it's also the 40th anniversary of Green Up Day in Vermont. Green Up Day takes place on the first Saturday in May across the state of Vermont. Kids and adults alike gather in their communities to clean up liter. If you have ever visited Vermont, you will notice right away the impact this one day of action has. Not only do the roads, sidewalks, streams and trails get a facelift, but new generations learn the importance of keeping our environment clean. As a kid, I participated in Green Up Day with my classmates every year. I learned the importance not only of putting trash in the garbage can, but also the how important it is to recycle and to reduce the amount of trash we create. While scanning the ground, bushes and ravines for trash, I began to notice how our garbage impacts the habitats of small creatures in my community. Suddenly one day of action turned into a year-long effort to reduce trash, recycle and protect the natural habitats in my town.

If you live in Vermont, you can participate in Green Up Day on Saturday, May 1st. If you live elsewhere in the country or world, why not start your own Green Up Day? All you have to do is gather a friend or two, a parent or teacher and get greening!

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Homemade Holidays

I am blogging over at Audubon.com's great blog, The Perch, today. Hop on over and get inspired to be crafty and green for the holidays.

"Creating homemade decorations was my favorite holiday activity growing up. Coming up with new ways to make gift wrap, gift tags, and ornaments from things found around the house and neighborhood was part of the challenge--and the fun. With being green on many of our minds this holiday season, we have an even greater reason to be resourceful and to look to nature for inspiration." Read more...

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Nature Detective

Hey Kids!

Did you know that we share our homes and yards with many creatures…other than your little brother? From tiny spiders to foxes, creatures live all around us, even if we can’t always see them. Sometimes we just have to use our sleuthing skills to find the evidence.

Can you spy any of these signs of wildlife?

-A nest

-A feather

-A spiderweb

-A nibbled leaf

-A shed exoskeleton

-Animal tracks in the snow, dirt or sand

-A burrow entrance

And now, try to spy the things a creatures needs to survive:

-Nuts, seeds and berries

-Pollen for bees

-Tall grasses, brush and trees to hide and nest in

-A source of water

With the evidence you find, can you make up a story about one specific creature’s day?

This post originally appeared on the Little Green Blog.

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Green your seafood

We often think of fish as being a healthy choice, but quite a lot of seafood is neither good for you, nor good for the environment. Fish can contain chemicals such as Mercury and PCB's (ick!) which are very toxic for your health. And while eating some fish can be a healthy part of your diet, one should consider the environmental impact. Seafood is often overfished, causing extensive habitat damage that can negatively effect the entire food chain. Some fish come from farms with widespread pollution and disease. Luckily scientists have done the research for us and can guide us in our seafood choices. Check out the Environmental Defense Fund's Seafood Selector to learn what are your best, o.k. and worst choices next time you are at the fish counter.

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John Muir - A Green Pioneer

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” –John Muir

John Muir (1838-1914), known as “the father of our national parks”, was America’s most famed naturalist and conservationist. As an explorer, he embarked on exciting wilderness adventures from Indiana all the way to Florida, among Alaska’s glaciers and throughout California’s Sierra Nevada. During his journeys he kept nature journals in which he wrote about the beauty he saw in nature. He drew detailed sketches of plants, animals, mountains and landscapes. He used these journals to compose letters, essays, articles and books that taught people, then and now, the importance of experiencing and protecting nature. His writing and activism inspired President Theodore Roosevelt’s bold conservation programs and lead to the creation of Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest and the Grand Canyon National Parks. In 1892, John Muir formed the Sierra Club and was the club’s very first president. The Sierra Club continues John Muir’s work today, teaching people about conserving our natural heritage and establishing new National Parks and a National Wilderness Preservation System.

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Meet Jason Chin, REDWOODS author and illustrator, part 3

Green Guide for Kids: Why do Redwood trees grow only in the Northwest of the U.S.?

Jason Chin: Redwoods can actually grow in many places, but the tallest and oldest trees grow in the northwest United States, because the climate there is best for them. To grow tall redwoods need a lot of water, and that area of the country gets a lot of rain--in fact the coast redwood forests are rain forests.

GGFK: Are the redwoods endangered?

JC: Redwood forests aren't on the US government's endangered species list, but there are far fewer redwoods in the United States than there were a century ago. The main threat is logging. There used to be about 2 million acres of coast redwood forest in the US, but 95% of that has been cut down. Today, less than 106,000 acres of the original forest remain. Some of that original forest has been replaced a second generation of trees. An important distinction must be made between old-growth and second generation forests. Old-growth forests are the ones that we normally think of when we think of redwoods -- they are home to the tallest, most impressive redwoods. It will take thousands of years before the second generation forests that began this century to reach their height.


GGFK: Are their any species that live only in the Redwood forests?

JC: There are a number of species that live only in old-growth forests. The spotted owl and marbled murrelet only nest in old-growth trees (both old-growth redwoods and douglas firs). These two species are endangered, since there are so few old-growth forests left and it take so long for new forests to grow back.


GGFK: What can we do to protect them and where can we learn more?

JC: There are many organizations dedicated to the preservations of old-growth redwood forests. One of the oldest and most respected is Save the Redwoods League, founded in 1918. Their website has a wealth of resources for kids and adults about redwoods including educational resources.

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The Story of Stuff

"The Story of Stuff" is a must-see video about where all of our "stuff" comes from, how it's made and where is ends up. Not only that, but the effect that the manufacturing, selling and disposing of all our "stuff" has on our planet, our bodies, and even our happiness. Going to the store will never be the same again!

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National Get Outdoors Day

This Saturday June 14th is National Get Outdoors Day. If you and your family spend a lot of time outside then you know how great it is to spend the day, or even a few hours, exploring, digging, hiking, running or climbing in nature. But if going outside is a rare event for you and your family, this Saturday is a great opportunity to get back to nature. The event will be celebrated at more than 54 locations across the US.

Visit Green Hour, to learn more about National Get Outdoors Day, as well as learning more about spending an hour outside everyday.

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Bug–Off Bugs! Gardening without Pesticides

Whether you think bugs are icky or cool, they are total pests when they eat our plants. Most of the food you buy at the supermarket is grown using pesticides to keep bugs at bay. Pesticides are chemicals that kill insects, weeds, rodents, fungi and other creatures. But there are many helpful creatures that we want to keep around because they pollinate flowers, eat the pests that damage crops, help recycle nutrients by eating dead plants and animals, and aerate the soil by digging and burrowing. Pesticides are also very toxic for your health. Luckily there are ways to scare off pests without hurting yourself or the environment.

Here’s what you can do:

–Clear your garden of weeds and dead plants, which are breeding grounds for insects.
–Plant a variety of vegetables and rotate your crops every year. Pests are often attracted to specific plants, so when planting is mixed pests are less likely to spread throughout a crop.
–Water your garden early in the day so that plants are dry for most of the day. Wet foliage encourages insects and fungus.
–Attract beneficial pest–eating bugs to your garden buy planting flowers such as cosmos, sunflowers, sweet alyssum, corn cockle and marigolds. Marigolds also have a strong stench that deters pests.
–Plant an herb garden. Some good pest–warriors are coriander, dill, caraway chervil, fennel, and parsley.

And when all else fails, you can concoct your very own homemade bug spray. Here’s the recipe:

– Mix one tablespoon of liquid dishwashing soap with one cup of vegetable oil.
– When you are ready to spray, combine one or two teaspoons of the mixture with a cup of water in a spray bottle and shake well.
– Spray the infected plants, but be cautious not to spray when the weather is too hot, as vegetable oil can burn plants in hot weather.

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You are what you eat...

We all know that cows can really stink. But cow manure is not only lethal for your nose, it ís also lethal for the environment. Cows and other livestock produce a greenhouse gas called methane. Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2, and is responsible for almost half of the global warming impacting the planet today. Animal agriculture produces 100 million tons of methane a year, that’s double the rate during pre-industrial times.

Did you know?

—Americans eat 10 times more animal protein than necessary for a complete nutritional diet.
—Meat—based diets require 10 times the land area to feed a person in comparison to a plant—based diet. Most of the 15 million hectares of tropical rainforest lost each year is used for raising cattle and growing animal feed. Cutting down and burning the rainforest not only spews more than a billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, it permanently destroys essential habitat for biodiversity.
—Some good news: While carbon dioxide takes 100 years to cycle out of the atmosphere, methane takes only 8. That means that actions we take now to lower methane levels will quickly result in a cooler planet.

What you can do:

Eat a plant—based diet. If you replace 1 beef meal a week with a plant—based meal you will save more than 40,000 gallons of water, 70 tons of grain, save 300 pounds of greenhouse gases from being emitted each year! And if you can encourage your family to do the same...just imagine the difference you can make!

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