Tips, advice and resources for parents and teachers

How to Take Action as a Family to Help the Environment

4/15/2015

Families today have more power than ever to help save the Earth from human waste and pollution. Read these steps to learn about just a few of the fun and helpful things you can do to make the Earth a little bit greener for all of us.

Help with recycling. Recycling programs are available practically everywhere. They clean and process certain kinds of waste so that the materials can be reused, which reduces the need for manufacturers to extract more resources from the planet. Children can help the adults in the home by organizing and regularly delivering their recycling for the recycling truck to pick up from the curb.
Reduce your energy consumption. Turn off lights and electronics (such as TVs and game systems) when you're done using them. During the day, open curtains and blinds, and rely on natural light instead of electric light.
Keep the temperature at a moderate level. If you live in a home with air conditioning, set it no lower than 72 °F (22 °C) during the summer months. In the winter, don't turn the thermostat up any higher than 68 degrees. (Use blankets and robes to stay warm when it's cool in the house.) At night, turn the thermostat as low as 55 degrees in rooms that nobody sleeps in.
Use less water. Take short showers instead of baths, and turn the faucet off when you aren't actually using it. This includes when you're brushing your teeth, but before you spit. Every little bit helps!
Start reusing items. Invest in 3 or 4 reusable shopping bags. These usually cost a dollar or less, and they'll drastically reduce the amount of paper or plastic shopping bags coming home from the grocery store. Use what plastic shopping bags you have left as trash bags in the bathroom or your bedroom. They fit small trash cans perfectly, and will reduce your consumption of specially-made plastic trash bags.

Plant trees. Deciduous (seasonal) trees planted near windows provide cool shade in the summer when their leaves are green, and then lose their leaves in the winter to let in more sunlight. Whichever way you cut it, that helps reduce energy costs. And any kind of tree at all makes a great pollution sponge, sopping up carbon dioxide and processing it into fresh oxygen for you to breathe.
Go over a tree guide and find trees that will grow to an appropriate height in your climate zone, without causing problems elsewhere in the yard. There's a tree for almost every height and climate.
Be sure to get care instructions for your tree, and water it regularly after it's planted. Take care of the sapling, and by the time your kids are grown up, you'll have a fine, strong tree.

Clean up a park. Find a day when the family can all go out for a morning to a nearby park. Bring a few large trash bags and some gardening gloves with you. Start at the parking lot, and follow every path in the park, picking up every piece of trash you find. Within a few hours, your park will be spotless!
If you see trash off the path, don't hesitate – go and grab it. If it's hard to reach, find a stick and try to knock and drag it closer. This doesn't sound like that much fun when you read it, but actually doing it is a great experience. In fact, you might like it so much that you want to set up a regular event once or twice a year to go back and clean it again.
Join a larger cleaning operation. If you look at the local news, you'll probably find that there are other groups of people doing cleanup operations similar to your park project. In almost all cases, these people are happy to have kids and families join up. You might get to clean up a beach, a campground, or a pretty mountain trail when you go out with a bigger crew. You'll also get the thrill of being part of a bigger movement.
Join other volunteer groups. Whether you like to plant trees, clean up trails, or even just spread the word about environmental change in your hometown, there's probably a local group of people who are interested in doing the same thing. Reach out to them and ask how you can help.

Read stories about the importance of caring for our world. Some good (free!) stories for Earth Day for children include:

Adapted from Wikihow. Photo courtesy of Extension Horticulture via Flickr.

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How to Take Action as a Family to Help the Environment

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