Teaching Your Kids About the Environment

Let?s face it, your kids are just that ? kids. They?re stubborn, they rarely listen, they have too much energy to ever possibly keep up with and they still have so much to learn.

But getting your kids to sit down and listen to you as you teach them about the environment might prove to be a bit of a challenge. Here are some tips to make learning about the topic fun so they?ll remember it and want to participate in making a change.

Children are our future and it's up to us to help them to learn about the environment and ways that can they protect it and nurture it for generations to come

Earth Day Activities

Make Earth Day the next national holiday in your family. Your children?s teachers will likely do a bit of teaching on the holiday, but it?s your job to really go all out with it. Decorate the house as you would for any other holiday ? but use things like vines, leaves and plants to emphasize that the day is all about learning about and appreciating the environment.

Do you ever make green milk to have with breakfast on St. Patrick?s Day? If you?ve never made it, you just simply mix a couple of drops of green food coloring into your kids? milk for a fun and exciting ?new? treat (it?s just milk). Do the same on Earth Day!

Buy coloring books and craft supplies for tons of Earth Day related activities at home when your kids get back from school. Take advantage of the day that?s already dedicated to the environment by going over the top with fun, environmentally-friendly ideas that will totally make your kids love our earth!

Go on Nature Hikes

Maybe your kids don?t particularly enjoy hiking, so try taking them on a short walk through the woods. It?ll be good to get them up and out of the house and away from the television and video games, and it?ll give you a great opportunity to teach them about the environment they live in.

Find a wooded area nearby your house that has some trails (most parks will be a good starting point). Do some research on plants and animals that are native to your area that you think you might be able to spot on your walk, and make up a checklist to give each of your kids. Make it a contest on your walk ? whoever can spot and check off the most plants and animals wins a prize.

If your child sees ones of the plants or animals on their list, use that as an opportunity to teach them a little bit about it (you have to do your homework, too!). If you really feel like going all out, teach them little tips and tricks about hiking and camping ? you could even go as far as teaching them about footprints in the dirt and building campfires (you?re not a BoyScout leader, though, so don?t get too in-depth!).

Bring a snack along with you and remind your kids how important it is to hold on to their wrappers until they find a proper trash can. This might be the most important lesson they learn all day!

Decorate Shopping Bags

Take that pile of reusable shopping bags you likely have in your house from going green and designate a couple of them to your kids.

Give each child some markers (permanent would be preferable if they?re old enough), paints or better yet, puff paints, gather up some stickers and pieces of fabric that can be glued on, and get to work creating personalized reusable bags with your kids! Let their imaginations run wild ? they can decorate their bags however they want!

Use these bags in place of paper bags for their lunches, or take them shopping with you to the grocery store and let them help you shop, carrying items they pick up in their reusable bags.

Take this opportunity to teach your kids about why it is you have those reusable bags in the first place, why plastic bags can be harmful to the environment, and give them a mini lesson on the importance of recycling. They?ll be thrilled to use their new bags and you?ll be happy to know that you won?t have to waste the brown paper bags anymore!

Start a Garden

Gardening can be a great idea for a number of different reasons. First, you?ll always have access to the most fresh products out there, but you can also consider selling your produce at a local farmers market and making some money, and you can even use a home garden as an opportunity to teach your kids about sustainability.

Start your kids off with something small, like a couple of herbs in the windowsill. Teach them the importance of watering their new crops and taking good care of them, and teach them how they can use the herbs for food (you don?t have to give them cooking lessons, just explain how each one can be used).

When they?re ready, move them on to something slightly larger, like a small lettuce patch or growing baby carrots. If they can handle taking care of those, designate an area in your garden to them, and let them choose what they want to grow and make sure they understand that their area is their responsibility 100%.

Use the garden as a chance to teach your kids about the process of how plants grow ? how they need sunlight and water to thrive and how you can keep growing certain ones over and over again and how others need to be replanted once you?ve pulled them and eaten them.

Teach Them to Conserve Water

Teaching your children about saving water early-on in their lives can make a life-long change for the protection of your environment and its natural resources. Start by having your kids turn off the faucet when they?re brushing their teeth.

Once they get into a habit of turning the water off while they brush, explain to them why you want them to do this. By simply changing this habit, each person can save up to 5 liters of water per minute ? that?s the equivalent of about 14 12-ounce bottles of water! It?s also enough to provide water to nearly 500,000 homes.

Recycle

Explain to your children that everything you throw away needs to be separated into trash and recyclables. Teach them the importance of recycling and how things that you throw away can be reused in some other way.

Make sure they know what can and cannot be recycled. This will be a process and will take some time, but make it into a game ? kids always love games. Have your kids keep track of how many items they recycle in a day, and whoever recycles the most at the end of the day wins a prize or a snack.

You could even consider crafting projects using recycled materials. Things like empty plastic water bottles and soda bottles, bottle caps, paper products, plastic cutlery and even plastic bags can make for some interesting craft materials. Get creative with it!

Jackie Ryan is a freelance writer for several environmental publications. She is constantly working with young children to teach them how important their environment is. Her secret weapon is Rubbermaid garbage cans ? she uses them to teach kids about what can be thrown in the garbage and what needs to be recycled, and she hopes that people will encourage the same tactic!

Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Source: http://pledgingforchange.com/green/teaching-your-kids-about-the-environment.php

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