Stan Slaughter has been making music about the environment for over 25 years. He’s taken every environmental topic, from composting, hazardous waste, recycling, solid waste and aquatic ecosystems, and turned them into countless songs to teach and inspire. Stan has traveled the country performing his environmental music to over 500,000 students and adults.

Stan’s music is no shrinking violet. He rocks out in many of the tunes, with serious guitar licks, so if you are looking for something light, all acoustic or bluegrass, this may not be it. But anyone who can turn the concept of an aquifer into a song has my respect.

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In classic “the world needs your help” secret agent mode, the game puts the child in ‘action-hero’ context to take on traffic, pollution and rubbish aligned with the three R’s of reduce, reuse, recycle.

It’s a pretty basic primer to seed core concepts in sustainability, but definitely age appropriate, incorporating factoids and video clips as kids become environmental agents on a mission to ‘find the missing R.’ (spoiler alert: the teacher’s page will fill you in on what that “R” is!)

There are four island missions (house, clear out, school, beach) and if kids engage in all four to obtain the right code words they can receive a final Eco Certificate. (hmnn…I know this is geared more for ‘reach and teach’ tactics, but I could think of some more creative/green awards that might be a better fit than a printout! So ping me, BBC, the idea hamster here will give you some freebie creative director ideas!)

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This is why I love Jackie Silberg’s book 500 Five Minute Games. Quick and Easy Activities For 3-6 Year Olds. Silberg’s book is great for preschool teachers, but also for moms and dads who tire easily of young children’s games and toys. Before getting this book I often felt tempted to pick up the phone or put on a movie when my preschooler’s games got repetitive. There’s only so many times in a day you can sincerely answer yes to ”Wanna play hippos?”.

The eco-friendly aspect of Silberg’s book is simple; the activities in it require almost no stuff. Apart from a few experiments that call for simple household items like a bowl or a flashlight, the majority of games and activities in the book require only the world’s most precious resource: children. (Some games require a few kids, but I have been able to adapt most of them to 2 player by either becoming a participant or inviting a stuffed hippo or pony into the circle.) You can also scan each page in a matter of seconds and get the game going before any attention is lost. My daughter’s favourite game from Silberg’s book is called “An Interesting Story” and is from the Language Game section. It goes like this: 

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At left is Dizzywood’s celebration of Wildwood Glen’s reforestation, where kids planted 15,000 trees in online to offline eco-parity, partnering with The Arbor Day Foundation. I’ve added a slew of other tree-planting ideas and sites at the end of this piece to get ready for 9-22-08, worldwide Tree Planting Day coming up in the next couple weeks. In keeping with the green media theme of hope, promise and eco-renewal…here’s more from my interview with Scott Arpajian, Co-Founder of preteen virtual world, Dizzywood…

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From greening your electronics to green gaming and havens for the budding naturalist, there are plenty of online to offline bridges to walk if you put on the right hiking shoes.

I love kid-lit and fabulous tree tales like A Forest of Stories and The Giving Tree is still my favorite book of all time…but paper free, online media like Dizzywood’s virtual world of collaborative play prove eco-literacy can transpire on a screen too…In Web 2.0 live-chat, 3-D immersive, fun!

Last week at the massive Virtual Worlds Expo in L.A., Dizzywood’s virtual critters and cuties turned some heads learning that kids’ reforestation efforts online enabled 15,000 REAL trees to be planted off line, thanks to their eco-partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation! Created for preteens 8-12 and Privo  Safety Seal tested with accolades out the wazoo, Dizzywood is thankfully, NOT an anomaly…Check out these OTHER eco-positive picks that prove green media is not an oxymoron!

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“Watching television can slow the development of children under 3, even when it involves channels aimed specifically at them.”

The warning is based on a ruling by the High Audiovisual Council which states:

Television viewing hurts the development of children under 3 years old and poses a certain number of risks, encouraging passivity, slow language acquisition, over-excitedness, troubles with sleep and concentration as well as dependence on screens.

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Last week the editors at Green Options asked me if I wanted to write a review of Woogi World. “Uh, okay, I haven’t written a hatchet piece an ages.” was my unenthusiastic reply.

Here’s the deal in my house. My kids get 30 minutes of media; it can be a TV show or some computer time. I’ll give them longer for a movie when we watch together or an hour or more when they’re playing with pictures or Garage Band, but really, leaving my kids parked in front of the computer on a glorious summer day is not my idea of time well spent.

With all that being said, this review may surprise you.

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Should the wealthiest in the world stop having kids? Indeed, would it best if we all kept to 1 or 2 per couple? Or does the fail to take into account religion, culture and every person’s right to have as many children as they like?

You can download the podcast (it’s called “Overpopulation”) to the program or listen to it using the BBC’s iplayer.

I’ve always dreamed of being a surfer. I’ve tried to ride the waves, but I don’t like saltwater in my eyes. I’ve even tried dating a surfer. When I heard of the movie Surfwise about the infamous Poskowitz family, I was excited to watch it and thought it might be fun to view with my daughter, until I noticed the R-rating. I wanted her perspective on what it would be like to not go to school and live in a camper, but there’s a lot of talk about sex in the movie.

Surfwise is the story of legendary surfer Dr. Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, his wife Juliette, and their nine children. Doc is a Stanford educated doctor who left his successful medical practice to chase the waves, towing along his 9 children (8 boys, 1 girl) in a 24 foot camper. The children slept like “puppies”, were raised on a strict natural diet of seven grain cereal, and surfed almost every day. As one of the children described, their life was like being on vacation all the time. Most children’s parents felt it was dangerous to swim with sharks and safer to go to school, but Doc felt the opposite about education. He felt that school was dangerous, and the sharks safe.

It all sounds rather idyllic, other than the crowded camper; however, Doc is a dictator jerk. He insisted on having sex every night in the camper with his children present, he beat his son for not surfing, and he demanded his wife breastfeed each child until they were two years old. I agree with long term breastfeeding, but instead of supporting his wife’s decision, Doc insisted this was how his children would be raised if that was how primates did it. There are some redeeming qualities about Doc, such as going to towns that hadn’t had a doctor in years for a job when money was needed and starting a surf school, but he left his children unprepared for the world and resentful of his domination.

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When greenwashing is aimed at adults, environmentalists generally find it annoying and sometimes — if it is sufficiently transparent — amusing. But when children are the targets, the environmentalists find it infuriating. So when Mattel recently issued a news release promoting its new line of Barbie BCause accessories for the doll — hats, handbags and the like — it was too much for the blogger on Eco Child’s Play, Jennifer Lance.

The piece that caught the NY Times’ attention is
The Ultimate Greenwashing: Barbie Goes Green.

Code Pink shares the mothers day inventor from 1870~Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation Arise then…women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts..

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Music for a Green Planet takes many traditional children’s songs, as well as other popular classics, and changes the lyrics to reflect a green message. I have probably listened to this cd a dozen times in one day, as my children absolutely adore it, and I do too.  The first track is a version of  “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain” only she’s driving a hybrid and using biodiesel.

We’ll be driving biodiesel when she comes
We’ll be getting cleaner mileage when she comes
We’ll be a part of the solution
Cause we’re making less pollution
We’ll be driving biodiesel when she comes

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Gorilla  in the Greenhouse, an episodic show premiering today, doesn’t preach at kids, but instead engages them on their terms and empowers them to take action. Animated by the people behind such web classics as The Meatrix, it features four smart kids and a wise green gorilla, facing the big green challenges of our day, with inventiveness, action, and most importantly, a rockin’ song.

Not many people could pull off making a catchy tune about a garbage island in the Pacific Ocean, but in the first episode, “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” they show otherwise. With people such as Ralph Guggenheim, one of Pixar’s founders producing, this moves beyond merely being entertainment to being a bridge to further conversation with your children about things happening in the real world, and what can be done about them.

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Well, the video is a little hokey, and the band a little odd, but this is one of my preschool students’ favorite songs.  We sing it a lot! The Banana Slug String Band’s songs are filled with messages of conservation and connectedness to nature, like “Dirt Made My Lunch”.

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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.

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I’ve done my best to keep the Disney Princess invasion at bay. We have none of the movies or, uh, “books” which are just ads for the movies, and none of the merchandise or apparel or personal care items that feature the Royal Threat. Except. We do have one Disney Princess ball. No, not the kind with music and party dresses. The kind you can kick.

It was an Easter egg hunt prize, and as hard as I try to “lose” it, it keeps getting found. Lately, my preschooler has taken to asking me what each princess is named.

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The report strongly recommends an increase in protection of children from commercialism, and that so much has changed since the first act was put in place, it necessitates new provisions for television and online content.

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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.

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There are plenty of other times, however, that I feel like I’m not like any other parent I know. We restrict television to some carefully-chosen videos. My kids have never walked through the door of a McDonald’s, and they still have no idea what a Happy Meal is. They don’t use the computer. I regularly weed out the many Disney princess products that are given as gifts, crossing my fingers that my daughter won’t notice a toy’s sudden absence (she usually doesn’t).

What’s my problem? other parents sometimes ask. What’s the big deal?

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