The Suter Energy Savers, a team of fourth-graders at Suter Elementary School, won at the elementary level for their work on 28 conservation projects in all. Their efforts included collecting $200 worth of recyclables, distributing flyers at area coffee shops urging customers to switch to compact fluorescent lightbulbs and making s’mores in a solar oven.

It was the first time the fourth-grade program won a national title, though it’s taken statewide honors three times already. The elementary program is led by teachers Deborah Pate and Judy Toy.

Also on their way to the Washington awards ceremony are eighth-graders representing The EnerJags from Workman Middle School. The junior level-winning team did everything from collecting recyclables and selling ad space on reusable shopping bags — enough to pay for the D.C. trip — to creating green t-shirts and observing regular “Blackout Wednesdays.”

Eighth-grade teacher Andrea Hussey said the weekly sunlight-only class day probably saved the school district about $200 in energy costs.

To find out more about Pensacola’s top green kids, check out this article in the Pensacola News Journal.

Shocking, right? Fabric is meant to be hoarded, right? But honestly, though those old pastel celestial prints might be useful for insulating my house or making my fridge run more efficiently, I am so over the stars thing and I am never going to use this stuff.

My local quilt guild takes donations of kid-friendly and soldier-friendly fabrics for various community service projects, but what if you don’t have a guild nearby? And more importantly, is there anything I can do to find a new life for the perfectly good yarn that I often see abandoned in thrift stores and at garage sales?

Here are five organizations that accept donations of craft supplies. Feel free to add more in the comments. I’ve tried to stick to permanent organizations instead of individuals or temporary efforts, and this list contains only organizations where I could confirm they accept donations. (There are hundreds upon hundreds of organizations listed all over the web, and hundreds of websites, but many of them no longer exist.)

If you’re going to donate supplies, please be thoughtful and make sure what you’re donating is appropriate. Someone in our guild once donated vinyl to the baby quilts project… um, ok… thanks, I guess…

The CUREchief Foundation provides scarves to people with cancer, alopecia, and other conditions which may cause hair loss. These CUREchiefs can be worn on the head, or around the neck. They accept donations of cotton, flannel, and polar fleece for their volunteers to use in making CUREchiefs. For their address, see their Volunteer Page.

Care Wear Volunteers has volunteers nationwide who make and donate handmade baby items to hospitals. Founder Bonnie Hagerman sent me this information about what they need:

Care Wear Volunteers appreciates receiving donated yarn, fiberfil, quilt batting, narrow white lace, flannel, broadcloth, and other fabrics suitable for children’s toys, apparel, and blankets/quilts. Donated supplies will be distributed to volunteers who request assistance with their projects that are donated to hospitalized children. Contact: Bonnie Hagerman, Care Wear Volunteers, c/o Hood College, 401 Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD 21701

Members of the Charity Craft Volunteer Network in Central Texas craft to help infants, children, breast cancer patients, elders with Alzheimer’s, patients in hospice, and others. They can use fabric, yarn, fiberfill, batting, and thread. You can see the types of items they make. Their Donate Page has the address.

Newborns In Need focuses on helping needy families clothe their babies and keep them warm by providing clothing and blankets to families taking their infants home from the hospital. Appropriate donations of fabric, sewing notions, and patterns are welcome. Donations may be sent to Newborns in Need National Office, 3323 Transou Road, Pfafftown, NC 27040.

You can contact the local chapter coordinator for the Project Linus nearest you to find out whether they need fabric for making kids’ blankets. “Materials must be new, unused and free of contaminants such as mold, mildew and smoke. They should be cotton or cotton/poly blends.”

The Preemie Project has chapters in Iowa and Michigan that make items for the NICU, PICU, and infant bereavement programs. Their Donate Page is up to date with needed supplies, including flannel, fleece, thread, ribbon, and lace.

Editor’s note:  This post originally appeared on Feel Good Style, one of our sister sites on the Green Options network. We thought our readers would enjoy it too! 

Fairy Tales all natural, organic hair care for children just launched their new “Summer Hair Care” kit. Fairy Tales Hair Care has created a specialty line of hair care products loaded with fruit enzymes and citrus extracts of lemon, grapefruit, pineapple and orange to help wash away sea salts, minerals and chlorine “green.” An infusion of aloe, sweet almond oil, jojoba and vitamin A, E and D then deep condition and moisturize the hair leaving it soft and silky even after a day at the beach or pool.

The Fairy Tales Hair Care kit includes

Lifeguard clarifying shampoo
Lemon -Aid Conditioner
Coco Cabana leave-in Sun Spray

In addition to the hair care products they also have created a non toxic bug repellant for the little ones. The rosemary Repel Spray contains pure, organic oils of citronella, rosemary, tea tree, lavender and geranium. These great smelling herbs have been shown to repel bugs such as mosquitoes, gnats and head lice!

Fairy Tales Hair Care is known as the leaders of lice prevention products for hair, they launched “Lice Good-Bye” a pesticide free, all natural nit removal system, using yeast enzymes and distilled water, Lice Good-Bye dissolves the “glue” that nits stick to the hair shaft with using a comb and a steady stream of warm water, Lice Good-Bye has been shown to safely and effectively remove nits.

I was pleased to learn about the Fairy Tales Hair Care line at the Premier hair show in Orlando Fl and I can’t wait to try the products on my little one.

Fairy Tales all natural, organic hair care for children just launched their new “Summer Hair Care” kit.  Fairy Tales Hair Care has created a specialty line of hair care products loaded with fruit enzymes and citrus extracts of lemon, grapefruit, pineapple and orange to help wash away sea salts, minerals and chlorine “green.”  An infusion of aloe, sweet almond oil, jojoba and vitamin A, E and D that deep condition and moisturize the hair leaving it soft and silky even after a day at the beach or pool.

The Fairy Tales Hair Care kit includes

Lifeguard Clarifying Shampoo
Lemon -Aid Conditioner
Coco Cabana leave-in Sun Spray

In addition to the hair care products they also have created a non toxic bug repellant for the little ones.  The rosemary Repel Spray contains pure, organic oils of citronella, rosemary, tea tree, lavender and geranium.  These great smelling herbs have been shown to repel bugs such as mosquitoes, gnats and head lice!

Fairy Tales Hair Care is known as the leaders of lice prevention products for hair, they launched “Lice Good-Bye” a pesticide free, all natural nit removal system, using yeast enzymes and distilled water, Lice Good-Bye dissolves the “glue” that nits stick to the hair shaft with using a comb and a steady stream of warm water, Lice Good-Bye has been shown to safely and effectively remove nits.

I was pleased to learn about the Fairy Tales Hair Care line at the Premier hair show in Orlando Fl and I can’t wait to try the products on my little one.

Photo Credit, Fairy Tales Hair Care for Children http://www.fairytaleshaircare.com/

According to Mother Jones, a developed world baby’s carbon footprint is quite large:

Between 2000 and 2050, the U.S. will add 114 million kids to its population. Africa will add 1.2 billion—but their respective CO2 emissions will be the same.

One American child generates as much CO2 as 106 Haitian kids.

Zahara Jolie-Pitt will produce 45,000 lbs of CO2 yearly, compared with 221 lbs if she still lived in Ethiopia.

A typical baby goes through 3,800 disposable diapers in her first 2.5 years.

96% of American babies wear disposable diapers. In China, only 6% do. In India, 2%.

China claims its one-child policy has prevented 400 million births—saving 1.5 billion tons of CO2 in 2004 alone.

China is often criticized for its one-child-policy as a restriction on personal freedom.  I am not a proponent of laws that dictate the demographics of a family, but I do think that through education, we can have a significant impact on helping families decide the right number of children for themselves and the environment. I believe in educated choice.

I do have a few friends who have three or more children.  One friend was accosted by another mother as being environmentally irresponsible for having three children.  For many environmentalists, having children feels like a hypocritical action.  Angharad Penrhyn Jones said in the Guardian:

Eco activists spend their lives agonising over the planet’s future - but that doesn’t stop them having children. We mustn’t give up hope.

It is a personal decision whether or not to have children.  I believe it is possible to live by environmental ethics and have a child, obviously since I am a mother.  The amount of carbon left behind as individuals and families is the most important factor, whether we have children or not. It is all about carbon emissions. If you leave a very small family’s carbon footprint, you are being eco-responsible and can still have children.  It is one reason why I live-off-the-grid and grow my food.  Just remember:

American children make up 4% of the world’s population, but they consume more than 40% of the world’s toys.

Contributions from environmental science and public-health experts such as Dr. Phil Landrigan, Dr. Harvey Karp and Dr. Alan Greene (as well as from celebrity parents such as Meryl Streep, Sheryl Crow, Gwenyth Paltrow, Tom Hanks, and Kate Hudson) make for a variety of insightful information.

The 336-page, hardcover book is available on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. For more info, check out healthychild.org/book.

May 6 was World Asthma Day. Since car exhaust can lead to asthma as well as global warming, we thought it would be a good day to highlight the importance of not idling your car or truck engine.

What makes idling especially bad for health is that drivers tend to idle in gathering places - by sidewalks, schools, playgrounds, homes, and offices. Breathing in pollution close to the source is more dangerous than farther away.

Take a look at the evidence.

Tailpipe Exhaust May Cause Asthma

Tailpipe exhaust from both gasoline- and diesel-burning vehicles contains the pollutants that produce ozone when combined with sunlight and heat. Ozone occurs mostly during the summer months. A warming planet means more hot days, and thus more ozone.

Breathing in ozone irritates and inflames your lungs, and repeated exposure can reduce lung function. There’s a lot of evidence that ozone makes asthma worse. But the Children’s Health Study in California found evidence that ozone causes asthma. The study also found that children can suffer irreversible lung damage as adults from breathing smog.

On top of that, diesel exhaust contains particulate matter (soot). This has long been known to cause a variety of health problems, including aggravated asthma (see CARB report on health effects [PDF]). But as with ozone, there is evidence that diesel exhaust particles may cause asthma, and not just worsen it.

California kids aren’t the only ones to suffer from tailpipe-induced asthma. A 2005 NYU Medical Center study showed that asthma symptoms among children in the South Bronx doubled on high traffic days.

Conversely, reducing ozone can improve asthma rates. During the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the city closed downtown to private cars for 17 days. During this time, daily peak ozone levels dropped more than a quarter and hospitalizations for asthma fell by almost one-fifth.

Fight Global Warming, Save Money

There’s no reason to idle your vehicle engine. As I explained my previous post:

• Today’s engines don’t need a warm-up period.
• If you’re stopped for more than 10 seconds, it uses more gasoline to idle than to restart.

Many cities, including New York, have laws against idling, but they’re rarely enforced. We need better enforcement, but we can make a difference with our own actions and behavior.

So in honor of World Asthma Day, switch off that idling engine. You’ll curb global warming pollution, save money on gasoline, and help everyone to breathe better.

The problems we are faced with today are the results of unethical leadership. Our business and political leaders have had the best education, yet many would sacrifice human wellbeing end the environment for the love of money.

Growing up in Soweto, near Johannesburg, South Africa has taught me to value “ubuntu,” or “I am because we are.”

Ethical problems can only be solved if the leaders are humanistically centered, have a love of nature, and agree not to enrich themselves unethically. This is the call to all leaders in the world to understand the purpose of life, which has been outshone by the illusionary world of money.

Who would hurt others for personal gain?

• Political leaders who caused or are still causing human suffering.
• Businesses and business people who promote harmful products that are of danger to human health for the love of money.
• People who oppressed my ancestors by making them to feel inferior because of their pigmentation.

Now, almost everyone in the list above had an opportunity to go school to acquire education. So, is our educational system really working to promote positive progress?

I am lectured by highly educated people who can’t even manage their own lives. Medical Doctors who preach that smoking is harmful and yet they smoke like there’s no tomorrow. Problems like global warming are the result of an education system where people studied how to manipulate nature irresponsibly.

Such severe problems as global warming and poverty are ultimately the result of our ignorance of our own essential nature, which is universal and the source of infinite energy and intelligence. The ignorance of one’s own self is the basis of all the problems, shortcomings in life.

Scientists have provided some obvious technical answers. Global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions and the solution to the dilemma of global warming is to reduce emissions via improved technologies, policies, and regulations where necessary. (One of the most recent ideas in the U.S. along these lines is a change in the federal tax code to encourage the use and development of alternate energy sources by corporations).

The solution to all the challenges is to have a system of education that gives completeness to the curriculum so that students coming out of the educational institutions will be fully developed and completely responsible citizens. Students must be brought up in the values of life, which is developed in higher awareness and understanding.

I learned to value ubuntu growing up helping my grandmother in her garden. Our education system fills our brain with knowledge, but not our hearts with compassion or love. Ubuntu is the pillar of all morality, peace and development. Our education system must develop the mind, spirit, and body of a student.

Photo: Flickr

PHOTO CAPTION: An evacuated family driven from their San Diego home by the 2007 wildfires. Photo: Michael Raphael/FEMA

Do you have children?

Because they are still developing physically, breathe faster than adults and rely on adults for care, children are more vulnerable. Watch out for:

• Heat waves. Infants and children up to four years old are particularly sensitive to heat and also rely on a care-giver to keep them adequately hydrated.
• Smog and soot pollution. Because their lungs are still developing, children can suffer irreversible lung damage as adults from breathing unhealthy air when young.
• Food- and waterborne diseases. Small children and children living in poverty are at higher risk for falling ill from diseases that climate change will likely exacerbate.
• Stress, anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder after disastrous extreme weather events.

Are you over 65 years old?

The U.S. population is aging; by 2030 one fifth is projected to be older than 65. Older adults often have frail health and limited mobility, making them more vulnerable to:

• Heat waves. Older adults with limited incomes may not have air conditioning and may have difficulty getting to air conditioned centers, if available. That can be deadly. The elderly are less resilient to temperature extremes in general.
• Floods and other natural disasters. Hurricane Katrina showed all too clearly how a disproportionate number of senior citizens often suffer or die during a disaster.

Do you have a chronic medical condition?

People with heart problems, respiratory illnesses, diabetes or compromised immune systems are more prone to exacerbated health problems from:

• Extreme weather-related disasters. Disruption of ongoing medical care and medicines is dangerous for the chronically ill.
• Heat waves. People with diabetes are at greater risk of death from heat waves.
• Bad air quality. Stagnant hot air masses and higher ozone and soot concentrations worsen heart and lung conditions. People with diabetes are also more susceptible to harm from air pollution.
• Transmitted disease and illness. People with weakened immune systems, such as those with AIDS or those taking certain drugs to treat cancer, have less ability to fight off diarrhea from waterborne microbes or fevers from spreading viruses or mosquito-borne illnesses.

Are you pregnant?

Pregnant women and their unborn children are particularly susceptible to:

• Food-borne illnesses and other climate-sensitive diseases. Certain medications to treat infections may not be recommended for pregnant women.
• Ill effects from extreme weather disasters. Disruption of health care access, exposure to toxins, unsafe conditions, and psychological stress following disasters can endanger pregnant women and the health of the fetus.

Is your family income on the low end?

An income of $21,200 for four people living in the contiguous 48 states (or $26,500 if you live in Alaska and $24,380 in Hawaii) is considered below the poverty level. Lower-income populations are disproportionately affected by:

• Heat waves. Concentrations of lower-income populations in inner-city neighborhoods often mean a disproportionate number suffer from the heat island effect: tall building and concrete intensify scorching days and stifling nights. People living in dwellings lacking air conditioning or windows that open face a higher risk of death.
• Extreme weather disasters. People with lower incomes may not have the means to evacuate quickly out of harm’s way. Access to medical care is more easily disrupted for lower income individuals. Katrina showed us the devastation that a natural disaster can bring to people living in poverty.

Do you live in an area with unhealthy air quality?

More hot days likely mean more smoggy unhealthy-air days. That’s because sunlight and heat spark a chemical reaction between ground-level ozone and other pollutants to form smog. If you live in an area already plagued by smog and soot, be prepared. Exposure to unhealthy air is not good for anybody but is particularly bad if you:

• Exercise outdoors regularly. On red-alert days, even the healthiest people should not exercise outdoors. Breathing in ozone singes your lungs much like a sunburn and repeated exposure can reduce lung function.
• Work outside. More exposure to polluted air puts you at greater risk of health problems. Working outside in a rural or suburban area is an added risk factor for getting infectious diseases carried by insects and ticks, like Lyme disease, that may proliferate in a warmer climate.

Do you live in a region that is especially prone to harmful climate change?

Some regions of the U.S. may be more affected by particular dangers than others. What can you expect if you live in the following regions?

• Southeast Atlantic and Gulf Coast. Residents of low-lying coastal areas will likely experience the one-two-three punch of more violent storms, strong storm surges and flooding, and coastal erosion. That will mean more damage to buildings and roads and possible contamination of drinking water.
• Southwest: Higher temperatures and less rainfall in an already hot, arid climate will likely strain already taxed water resources. The chances for wildfires and dangerously bad air quality will go up.
• Northwest: Heavy rainfall may lead to flooding and sewage overflow, causing illness and spread of disease.
• The Great Plains: Milder winters and scorching summers could take a toll on the country’s” bread basket” and hinder food production. Residents of cities would particularly suffer from intense heat waves.
• Northeast: Rising temperatures could mean more allergies and spread of diseases carried by insects or animals, such as West Nile virus or Lyme disease.
• Alaska: Melting permafrost and retreating sea ice are already disrupting residents’ lives and subsistence hunting and fishing. Milder temperatures are allowing more pests such as spruce bark beetles to proliferate.

How you can help

• Share Tips for a Healthy, Low-Carbon Life with friends and family.
• Tell Congress to cap America’s global warming pollution.
• Find other ways to help slow global warming.

Without further adieu… My name is Dave Room (and that’s my daughter in the photo). I have been working on localization for the past four years. Sometimes it has felt like I am swimming upstream. Actually it still feels like that - the difference is that now the current is not quite as strong. As the financial underpinnings of our society unravel, as food prices soar, as oil prices regularly hit new highs - it seems like I am living a prophecy. Everything that is happening now has been more or less accurately predicted by a large International community of people who have been following our oil predicament. Another name for our oil predicament is peak oil, but its really all about the oil depletion and the coming imbalance between supply and demand. Sometimes I call these folks “the depletionista”.

Were it not for peak oil, I probably would not be an eco-localizer (but that’ll be another post). Undoubtedly, I’d be chasing dollars, trying to earn my way to a huge house in the Oakland Hills, and probably have my family intact. Had I stayed my previous course, I would have likely jumped into another start up tech firm and rode it to what would have likely been temporary monetary glory.

But how could I do that knowing what I knew and having the opportunity that I had. I chose to forgo sailing the Greek Isles (at least for now), seasonal sun chasing across the hemispheres, and the high energy life style that I previously enjoyed. Instead I toil working nonprofit wages, writing blogs that don’t get enough traffic to adequately compensate me for my time, and starting projects that just need to happen.

How could I do anything else? I have a five year daughter - she is my heart, my inspiration. And I know that one day, perhaps a decade from now or more, she is going to ask me “Papa, why is everything the way it is?” I have to be able to look into her beautiful brown eyes, and say that I did everything I could and that I still am doing everything I can. I have to know inside that it would have been worse without my efforts. I owe that to her and her contemporaries.

Almost four years ago, I was speaking at the Whole Earth Festival at UC Davis. I was the warm up act for Julia Butterfly Hill but no one was there yet because the stage was off to the side. Actually there were a few people, most of them appeared to be taking a rest from the beating sun. Fewer than 15 people were either lounging on haystacks or sitting on hay spread over ground. Nevertheless, I was juiced; my first public speech - on Mothers Day, feeling especially honored to have my then wife and my 18 month old tree hugger in the audience. Melia’s birth had been the tipping point for me to get active in working for a more sustainable future. That day, I started with a proverb which is attributed to a number of indigenous peoples that resonates strongly within me:

We don’t inherit the planet from our parents; we borrow it from our children
~ Common Indigenous Proverb

I told my heat exhausted, half indifferent audience that my goal was to pay this debt fully to Melia and her contemporaries. I noted that my ability to do so was, however, hampered by what I did inherit from my predecessors – the malignant, inequitable, deceptive unidimensional system that is spreading like a virus across the globe, ravaging Mother Earth and communities wherever it gains a toehold. Yeah, I was pretty hardcore with it. Anyway, I followed with the three points I hoped my audience would take away from the talk.

1. Although it may not be apparent, biosphere destruction is a life threatening problem
2. The situation is urgent because of the coming energy crisis
3. There is hope but we are going to have to begin working on solutions now – collectively and locally

Four years later, I still believe this.

But hold on. You’re the type who wants to help make the world a better place. Frappuccinos, Guinness, and burritos are not the be all and end all of cultural exchange. Then you’ll be happy to know that environmental values are making their way into Korea as well.

Many Koreans are taking note of the global environmental movement, which is already in full swing in much of the world, with increasing interest.

Children in South Korea are exposed to both their parent’s traditional environmental values and the environmental values of their foreign teachers in their English academies. They’re therefore a good barometer for the evolving environmental consciousness in South Korea. In one informal survey that I conducted with all 44 of my Korean students, I found that 77% of them said they were “very interested in the environment.”

Students who study for the TOEFL (the Test Of English as a Foreign Language) have an additional influence when it comes to matters of the environment: the TOEFL test materials themselves. Today’s TOEFL test prep books concentrate heavily on readings about such environmentally germane topics as species extinction and renewable energy.

Through school and media influences, interest in the environment is strong enough here to sway even the greatest of forces in Korean culture, the Korean mother. A New York Times article about Eco-Moms, which recently circulated around the Korean media, has only added to the interest in parenting with environmental values.

Still, for all of the growing numbers of foreigners and increasingly international dialogue on the environment, in much of South Korea the environmental movement remains distinctly Korean. The chamsari, or well-being, movement is a uniquely Korean green movement. It’s centered on healthy eating, exercising, and avoiding unhealthy activities.

Cultural colonialism or a healthy exchange of ideas?

In some ways, I can’t get over the feeling that I’m a neo-colonialist. My job as an English teacher is to spread the dominant language and culture. In my classroom, I’m a linguistic bouncer, kicking out Korean wherever it crops up and stamping everyone with new English terms. Many of my students have even chosen English names, like the little tyke in the picture above.

Linguists would say that I’m replacing the substrate language and culture with the superstrate language and culture. If these terms sound familiar, you’re either a linguist or you’ve lived in San Francisco, like me. Sure, we have a straight culture… a super straight culture.

But for whatever negatives there are in spreading the most dominant language around the world, being an English teacher also allows for some very positive cultural exchanges. Sometimes, I’m able to help my students take pride in their country’s great strides toward renewable energy, personal health, and recycling. More often than not, I’m the one who’s learning.

When the middle school English books talk about organic foods, I can ask, “Did you know that organics are a rapidly growing industry in North America?” When the TOEFL prep books give a reading on wind energy, I can point to Gangneung’s wind energy farm, which is on the mountains right above the city. And with my small kids, we all enjoy seeing YouTube footage of whales and other amazing animals before class starts.

Outside of the classroom, I’m the one on the receiving end of cultural lessons. Here in rural Korea, westerners make up about 0.02% of the population by my calculations. When you’re one in 5,000, you tend to draw attention. When I go into a restaurant by myself for lunch–already a faux pas in Korea’s group-centered culture–the word wegugin, or foreigner, excites people’s tongues and hangs in the air, strung up by sideways stares like squid drying in the sun. I feel like the squid. The other diners casually throw out guesses amongst themselves as to where I’m probably from, or they swap stories about previous encounters with foreigners. Cultural lesson number one: Confucius says, “value community.”

Photo: Flickr

So far, our Healthy Children, Healthy Planet discussion group has tackled family dinners, consumer-free holidays, the over-programming of children’s activities, advertisements, and whether parents deserve a Bill of Rights, and what kind of moments can be used to pass down values. This week, the conversation turns to everyone’s favorite enemy: junk food.

Ah, junk food. It’s true what they say: we have become a junk food nation. We are a nation of processed food, of food in boxes, of omnipresent vending machines, of gas stations that stop selling gas, because the real money is in snacks.

You guys are smart, right? You don’t need me to tell you that some artificial food additives appear to cause hyperactivity in kids. Or that a sugar-filled diet is linked with asthma. Or that junk food causes learning disabilities and behavior problems. Or that it increases the risk of diabetes. Or that it rots their teeth. Never mind that, oh yeah, it makes them overweight; since I was a kid, for example, the number of overweight kids has doubled. Thanks to these factors, this generation of children is the first in all of American history to have a lower life expectancy than their parents — a dubious honor if I’ve ever heard one.

What struck me as we talked about the issues, though, is how alone we have all felt in tackling them. For many of us, it literally feels like Lone Parent vs. The Rest of the World, because junk food is just so ubiquitous. First graders do math with skittles. Kindergarteners are given M&Ms as rewards. Well-meaning other parents bring in cupcakes for no reason. And have you noticed that every single holiday — not just Halloween and Easter, but holidays like St. Patty’s Day and Thanksgiving — all have candy attached to them.

Meanwhile, all of us — every single one of us — has felt like that parent. The crazy parent, the unreasonable, hysterical one. The Food Freak. Because, you know, we think that an apple is an appropriate snack.

Which is one of the reasons that this discussion group has been so great. Because we can look around, see other people who look normal, who seem smart, and we can say, “Oh, you mean this bothers you, too?” And then we start jumping up and down, screaming like a couple of 13-year-old girls, because suddenly we don’t feel quite so alone. Now, for the first time, we can point another parent who offers grapes before an Oreo, or who bothers to wonder “is trans-fat laden cookie dough an appropriate fundraiser for the school?”

Now, it’s a Handful of Us vs. The Rest of the World. It’s not just me. It’s me and a room full of friends. A small room, admittedly, but a room nonetheless. We’re short of an army, but I feel a little less like I’m shouting into the wind. For that alone, it’s worth it.

Related posts:
Healthy Children, Healthy Planet Week One

Consumerism vs. Family Ritual: Healthy Children, Healthy Planet 2

Do Ads Hurt Families? (And If So, What to Do?): Healthy Children, Healthy Planet 3

Modeled after the Illinois Sustainable University Compact, which began in 2006, the new Illinois Sustainable Schools Compact sets out 12 achievable sustainability objectives for elementary and secondary schools. These goals focus on conserving energy, encouraging recycling, and practicing natural landscape techniques (including minimizing the use of chemical fertilizers, following a conservative watering schedule, using rain barrels, and planting drought-resistant native species). For complete list of the goals in the compact, click here (PDF).

Interestingly, four of the 12 goals put forward in the Illinois Sustainable Schools Compact are aimed at curriculum; rather than simply focus on greening the schools’ physical plant and operations, the compact calls for students to learn the concepts of environmental sustainability in deeper way. These curriculum goals call for the introduction of environmental studies in the classroom and promoting green awareness through community service projects, field trips, and environmental club activities. One of the goals suggests that students, teachers, and staff work together to create a rain garden on school property.

As an environmentalist and a parent, I think this kind of iniative is great to see. First, it sets some concrete objectives for school administrators who may be wondering which direction to go when implementing a green agenda. In the bureaucratic environment of school administration, having so many choices of direction can lead to paralysis. This compact provides a concrete framework to help schools prioritize many of the good ideas that may come from students, parents, faculty, and staff members wanting to see their school reduce its ecological footprint.

Second, even though school participation in the compact is completely voluntary, it puts the topic on the table, in a simple and straightforward way. It allows schools to benchmark their progress on a number of fronts against a statewide standard. In this era of school “accountability” it gives administrators a chance to see how they measure up against other schools on the issue of sustainability. Right now, simply signing the compact is a feature that may distinguish one school from another in the minds of parents choosing the right school for their children.  But down the road, parents will be able to ask school officials, “How many of the Illinois Sustainable Schools Compact goals has your school met?” It could be a powerful tool for measuring school performance in arenas that often get a lot of lip service but not much in the way of quantifiable evidence.

Finally, I think it’s vitally important that the teaching of environmental awareness become part of every school’s core curriculum. Children won’t have the framework to understand the challenges of climate change, water conservation, and renewable energy (to name just three global problems that society will have to confront in the coming decades) if these concepts aren’t addressed from an early age. If the next generation of scientists, engineers, activists, entrepreneurs, and educators receives a good grounding in environmental issues, they will be more likely to see the ecological problems facing humanity as intriguing challenges upon which they can base the work of a career. The sooner we can get the creative minds of tomorrow engaged in addressing the environmental challenges facing humanity, the better.

Hopefully, Illinois schools’ goal-oriented commitments to operate sustainably and teach students why such change is necessary will catch on in school systems around the U.S., and around the world. The earlier we expose all young people to the complex, unseen ecological costs of modern society, the sooner it will be possible to form the kind of political consensus that must accompany the truly transformative change it will take to create a more sustainable economy.

Further reading:

News story on Sustainable Universities Compact - DailyIllini.com

Sustainable Universities Compact - Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn

Photo credit: Standing Up for Illinois

40,000 television commercials a year. That’s what the average American child sees. That’s around 100 ads for every 4 hours of television.

What’s that, you say? No TV in your house? Oh, but your kids will still see plenty of ads. There’s online adver-gaming. There are ads on school buses. Ads in the classroom. There’s product placement in movies. Not to mention billboards, posters, textbook covers, …it’s all fair game.

Week 3 of the Healthy Children, Healthy Planet series, the 7-part parenting discussion course from the Northwest Earth Institute, was all about ads. Namely, the pervasiveness of ads in our children’s lives, and whether it is even possible to create ad-free spaces in their lives.

What’s clear is that advertising is different in both quantity and quality than it’s ever been before. The amount of money spent on marketing to children — $2 billion annually — is close to 10 times greater than it was even in 1990. And the nature of it has changed, too — mostly, because there’s no place safe from it. Not schools. Not movies. Not even your daughter’s sleepover party.

Why does it matter if your kid gets bombarded with ads? It matters, because research shows that ads make your child unhealthy. They also make your child unhappy. And they weaken families by creating a wedge between parents and children (let’s pause to reflect on the fact that advertisers claim that it’s parental responsibility to protect their children from, say, junk food, the most heavily advertised product, even while advertisers try at every turn to undermine parental authority. Oh, don’t get me started).

What can a parent do about it, though? Some say we should ban advertising to children altogether, as has been done in Sweden. But short of that, there’s no single, simple solution.

Turn off the TV. Sure, that’s a good start. But it’s only a start. Limit computer time. Get involved with your schools so you know what’s being advertised there, and by whom. Teach your children about what ads are, how they work, what strategies advertisers use, and how the ads make your children feel. Others have tried that strategy, and found it worked. And there’s another thing we can do: spend a little more time with the kids, away from the media — out of doors, or reading together, maybe — helping them discover the stuff that matters.

The conversation brought me back to one I’d had that morning, as I was driving my daughter to school. She’d asked about these “parent meetings” I’d been attending. She’d wanted to know what we talked about.

“Well, today we’re talking about advertisements.”

“What’s the matter with advertisements?”

“Well…” I paused. “Remember last summer?” I asked. “When you caught that frog, the one you named Tony?” I wasn’t sure if she’d remembered, but I remembered it well. We’d spent a week at a cottage by a lake, and she’d spent hours digging around in the reeds, looking for snakes and water bugs. One afternoon, she caught a frog, and was absolutely thrilled. She named him Tony, and she whispered to him, and studied him closely, wonder in her eyes.

Then, when it was time, she let him go, watching him hop toward the water.

Sitting in the car now, she exclaimed “Tony! He was the best frog ever!”

“Right. He was. And the problem with ads is that they make you think that products like Barbie dolls are really important. But they’re not. They just take you away from the really fun things…things like catching Tony.”

She smiled, and I could tell she was thinking about that week, the one with fresh lake water, and canoes, and tiny fish that nibbled her toes if she stood still, and lakeside blueberries fresh from the bush….and in the midst of all, a beautiful bright green frog named Tony.

“I get it, Mom.” For that moment, at least, she did.

We’ve got plenty more talking to do as time goes on. But at least the conversation’s started.

Related posts:
Healthy Children, Healthy Planet Week One

Consumerism vs. Family Ritual: Healthy Children, Healthy Planet 2

See, I’ve got kids? And, see…they’re kind of…energetic enough? I mean really, truly. Spend five seconds in my house and you will see: they are doing just fine bouncing off the walls of their own accord. So, I’ll thank the world for not encouraging them to bounce off the ceiling, as well.

Oh, but I can‘t thank the world, because apparently the world is instead choosing to fill them with caffeine when I’m not around.

As this great article from Metroactive explains, “these days, constraints on caffeine consumption for kids and young teens are nonexistent. Kids are having caffeine early and often.” It’s not just in their drinks, apparently. Candy bars? Increasingly filled with the stuff.

Now, the question that kept going through my mind as I read this was “have these people ever been around kids?”

But apparently they have; the Metroactive article notes that it’s not just nasty food marketers that are jacking our kids up. Apparently competitive-minded parents are happily showing up at sports events with high-caffiene drinks or packages of uber-charged candy and goo to help their kids have an edge on the field.

Thanks to folks like that, turbo-charged goodies are becoming big business.

Personally, I’m wondering where our sanity has gone. But I don’t have time to contemplate it, as my kids are now scaling the side of our house. Excuse me while I go try to catch them.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net