Earth Day 2014

Earth Day 2014

Robin @ Kids Matter

Earth Day is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. Earth is an amazing and beautiful place.  Our ecosystem is complicated, and we have to take care to keep it in balance to preserve the planet for ourselves and future generations.

What’s happening?

Rainforests that once covered 15% of the earth’s land, now only cover 6%.  At this rate, we will probably consume the remaining rainforests in less than 40 years. Why is this important?  Major deforestation also brings pollution, soil erosion, malaria epidemics, leads to the extinction of plants and animals that existed in those forests; there is less rain, less oxygen, and increased threat of global warming. 

Over three million tons of toxic chemicals are released by factories into the land, air and water each year. There are many sources of pollution including: chemical and nuclear plants, oil refineries, human sewage, littering, and etc.  Pollution disturbs that balance in our ecosystem and can lead to serious changes in our environment such as increased illnesses, poor air quality, polluted drinking water, and etc. We can fight this by cutting down on landfill waste and reusing items and recycling others. Remember the old saying, “reduce, reuse, and recycle”? We can cut down on air pollution by driving less, (carpool or walk if you can!) and by quitting smoking.  Some types of pollution are out of our personal control, but we can contact our elected representatives to let them know how important protecting the environment is to us.

After this cold winter that we just had, it may be hard to believe, but climate change does exist. The global temperature has been going up, and will continue to do so unless we make changes.  Small changes in temperature can really have a big impact on climate and weather around the globe.  Many places have had increases in the number of droughts or floods, along with more frequent and severe heat waves. As the ocean begins to warm, even a little bit, the glaciers begin to melt, which causes the sea level to rise. This changes the balance in our eco-system and will probably present challenges to society and the environment far into the future.

These issues are just a few that affect our planet. Dealing with them is not easy or always cheap.  So remember, when you invest in the environment, you invest in the future. Explore the sources below to learn actions you can take today to go green!

Goinggreentoday.com

green.eku.edu

treehugger.com

The EPA website is also a great source for tips on what you can do to go.  An easy list of what you can do at home:

1. Replace the five most used light fixtures or light bulbs to energy star ones.
2. Look for energy star appliances when buying new ones for your home.
3. Heat and cool smartly; change filters, use a programmable thermostat, have your equipment maintained to make sure it is operating effectively.
4. Seal and insulate your home.
5. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.
6. Use water efficiently.  Repair leaky toilet and faucets, use the dishwasher only when full, and don’t let water run while brushing your teeth or shaving.
7. Be green in your yard. Compost your garbage
8. Purchase green power such as solar energy.
9. Calculate your household’s carbon footprint, and reduce it.
10. Spread the word.

Making Puffy Paint

I have seen many blogs making homemade puffy paint and we decided to give it a try this week. We used the recipe from Pocketful of Posies The only materials we needed were tablespoon, containers, flour, salt, water, food coloring, cardboard and microwave.


For each color of paint you will put 1 tbsp. flour, 1 tbsp. salt and 1 tbsp. of water in a container and add 10 drops of food coloring. Mix well. Repeat for each color. We originally made lime green, blue and red. We used a spoon to drop this onto the back of an empty food box and then swirled it around with the spoon.

Next, put the cardboard in the microwave on high for 15 second increments until it dries. It took our first picture 1 minute 15 seconds to dry.

Once we had completed that we decided to make another painting but thought we would just use blue and green and would make Earth. I really liked this one. We put the blue paint on the cardboard and used the spoon to spread it out into a round shape. Next, we drizzled the green paint on. We then put this in the microwave in 15 second increments. I took this out before the center was completely dry as I wanted to see how it would look if we just let it dry naturally, would it still puff? It was still puffy but not nearly as much as the areas that were dried by the microwave.

Monday Meanderings - Earth Day

Earth Day 2011 is the 41st anniversary of Earth day. Way back in 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin watched closely at the state of the coast in Santa Barbara California due to the massive oil spill in 1969. As he watched the damage caused by this oil spill he was inspired to take action. At the time, no one was really concerned with the environment and green was just a color, not a movement. He used the students that were protesting the war to mobilize 20 million people to take to the streets, parks and auditoriums. 20 million people came together to form coast to coast rallies to raise awareness of the detiorating environment of the planet. With the rallies, political parties worked together to form the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air, Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.

In 1990, environmental leaders appealed to Denis Hayes (Earth Day 1970's National Coordinator) to organize another large event. This time there was a global initiative bringing together 200 million people in 141 countries to bring light to the environment. This is when green became much more than just a color. Recycling took off with all lines of people and the ground work was set to begin the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio De Janiero in 1992. President Bill Clinton awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Senator Nelson in 1995 for his act in founding Earth Day.

First we have The STEM Blog with a great listing of activities for classrooms to do in celebration of Earth Day.

NASA has a great form that talks about scale models of the Earth and Moon using play dough. All you need is a 3 lb. tub of play dough and an inquisitive nature.

No Time for Flash Cards has a great activity that they did with kids using blue and green play doh to make a model of the planet Earth.

Almost Unschoolers did a great experiment to find out about oil spills and how they use dish washing liquid to clean off the birds and other animals affected by the oil.

Be sure to get out there and do something with the kids to show them that Green is important.