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Articles - Education
Kid-Friendly Cyberspace Activities to
Celebrate Earth Day
By Karen Fritscher-Porter
Earth Day celebrations will take place throughout April.
Although April 22 is officially Earth Day, you’ll find related
festivals and events nationwide, actually worldwide, revolving
around healthy environmental themes that provide family fun
and education—as well as functional services such as temporary
recycling drop off points for everything from motor oil to old
paint stored in your garage. Kids can kick off the 31st
anniversary of Earth Day by having some fun in Cyberspace (no
need to tell them this is educational fun or that some of the
activities can even develop leadership qualities in them).
Parents: Visit the following sites and then send your children
to your favorite picks—which may even be all of them.
1. Send free Earth day e-cards to friends and relatives. Send
Earth Day greetings for free to friends and family. You’ll be
saying hello and promoting the holiday. At
http://www.care2.com/send/categories/Earth_to_kids you’ll
find cards created by young children for an environmentally
related art contest. When you send these cards, you
personalize them by choosing greetings, background colors or
patterns, music, and a postal stamp plus add your message.
Look for more Earth Day e-cards, including animated ones, at
http://www.care2.com/send/catearthday1.html plus try the
links to Earth Day e-cards easily found at
www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/earthday/ and
http://www.planetpals.com/earthdayideas.html.
2. Order 10 free trees to plant in the backyard. Need some
shade in your backyard? Go to The National Arbor Day
Foundation site at
www.arborday.org and click on "get 10 free trees." Well,
they may not be truly free, but for $10 you get 10 six to 12
inch Colorado Blue Spruces or assorted flowering trees with
planting instructions and a guarantee that they’ll grow or
else free replacement. By making this purchase, you’re
agreeing to become a member of the Foundation and thus will
receive membership benefits periodically such as newsletters,
the Tree Book and discounts on optional future tree purchases.
Ordering and planting family trees should probably be a
combined parent and child activity but you and your children
can explore the membership selections together. Then start
digging those holes in the backyard!
3. Learn to turn your trash into treasures. Can you make
something from paper plates, lids, newspaper, unsolicited
promotional CDs and more? You bet! Using items someone planned
to throw out as well as simple craft supplies such as colored
tissue paper can lead to numerous fun creations for kids. Go
to
http://familycrafts.about.com/library/trcrafts/blpplatetrt.htm
and
http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/earthdaycrafts/index.htm
. These two links to the diverse About.com site offer a
multitude of Earth Day and other themes for craft projects
using "trash." Check out the link here to the litter bug that
is created with newspaper, string, straws, bottle tops, and
caps along with some glue. It would be a great conversational
piece to trigger some talk about litter clean-up with
admirers. Also try
http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/earth/index.html where you
can learn to make a cool kid’s vest out of toilet paper rolls,
recycled gift wrap and the newspaper funny pages.
4. Join an Earth friendly kid’s club. Or kids can get guidance
on starting such a club in their hometown. Kids for a Clean
Environment at
www.kidsface.org provides information on starting your own
chapter of this club, which has a mission to provide
information on environmental issues to children as well as
facilitate effective involvement by youth and offer them
recognition for it. The organization already has more than
2,000 club chapters in 15 countries and more than 300,000
individual members. In addition to the website, you can get
information by calling 1-800-952-3223. Some other club links
to visit include Tree Musketeers at
www.treemusketeers.org
and the EcoKids Club at
www.EcoKids.earthday.ca/pub/splash.cfm.
5. Make a "free" donation benefiting the environment. It’s no
big deal if your kids have no money to donate to an
environmental cause because they can make donations on the Web
at no cost. Advertisers pick up the tab. For instance, when
you click on the tiger, jaguar or snow leopard at
http://bigcats.care2.com/,
you’re making a donation to support the Wildlife Conservation
Society’s Big Cat habitat protection program. When you click
on the tiger you help support saving more than 16,000 square
feet of tiger habitat for one year. You can help save 35
square feet of the rainforest by clicking at
www.saverainforest.net
and 7.4 square feet at
www.rainforest.care2.com. Sites usually ask that you only
click once per day. Also, it’s optional but helpful to the
cause if you click on the ads sponsoring your free gift;
obviously this provides incentive for the sponsors to keep
helping out financially. You can usually find these free
donation links at many educational and organizational
environmental sites.
6. Play some Earth friendly games and puzzles. Children can
try to decipher the secret recycle message at PlanetPals at
http://www.planetpals.com/americarecycles.html#Puzzle or
play Save The Trees Game at
www.randomhouse.com/seussville/games/lorax/. At Surfing
the Net With Kids at
www.surfnetkids.com/earthday.htm kids can choose the word
search link for puzzles that seek words such as conservation
and energy. Also try the "game room" at the Explorers’ Club at
www.epa.gov/kids/. Most
of these Earth Day children sites have links to lots more
games and activities for a variety of ages.
7. Sing a song. At Earth Day at Kids Domain at
http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/earthday/songs.html you
can view a list of links to Earth friendly tunes—some provide
the words for free or you can use the information here to find
the piece for sale elsewhere (Singing along with a taped song
might be fun too!). One link leads to
http://www.buschgardens.org/AnimalsAbound/musicalmemories.html
where children can learn the words to "Planet Earth’s Our Only
Home," which you sing to the tune of Old McDonald. Prefer
poetry? Kids can write a planet friendly rhyme and enter the
contest at
http://www.planetpals.com/ppstar1.html .
8. Learn the history behind Earth Day. With all the fun things
to do, don’t forget to learn a bit about the meaning of Earth
Day. Did you know that the first Earth Day was held in 1970
and its vision is mostly attributed to a Wisconsin senator?
That’s what it says at
http://usparks.about.com/library/weekly/aa041401.htm?terms=earth+day
which offers a one-page history lesson about the day’s origins
and purpose. But don’t stop there. Read and compare all the
facts offered online about the history of Earth Day at other
sites too, such as the Kids Domain at
http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/earthday/history.html.
If you and your family would like to attend an Earth Day
celebration, locate one near you by checking with area chamber
of commerce or visitor’s bureaus, browsing for ads promoting
Earth Day festivals in your local newspaper, or by visiting
www.earthday.net and
using the "find an event" search box. Events are entered
ongoing so you may want to return to the site periodically. v
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