Free Environmental Education Curriculum

The No Impact Project has come out with a free environmental education curriculum suitable for middle and high school kids.

I've not registered to download the curriculum so I can't comment on the details. What I can tell you is that I respect the work of Colin Beavan who has lived his no impact experiment with his family. I have every faith that this curriculum has quality content.

According to the website, the environmental education curriculum:

• contains 5 lessons - consumption, energy, food, transportation, water
  
• incorporates internet-based video clips
• is designed to be taught in 50 minute lessons
• is suitable for grades 6-12, but can be adapted for other ages/grades
• the author is "Cari Ladd, M.Ed., is an educational writer with a background in secondary education and media development. Previously, she served as PBS Interactive’s Director of Education, overseeing the development of curricular resources tied to PBS programs..."

You don't need to own the No Impact Man book or DVD in order to use the curriculum. If you want to take it further you can join the No Impact Experiment one week carbon cleanse.

* Weekly Earth News 05/26/09

This article has been relocated to Loving Nature's Garden.

* Growing Green

Find this article in it's new home at Loving Nature's Garden.

* A Gentle Way of Gardening

Please visit this article at Loving Nature's Garden.

Learning Links

Web page tabs are stacking up fast again and it's time to share learning links. Here are some great links that are laying around unused by me and you might as well have them :-)

• Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a vast collection of information on their website. Your family might like to join in with Project Feederwatch. Check out their wonderful Homeschoolers Guide to Project Feederwatch. I love our little feathered friends; anyone else wish they could fly?
• My bloggy friend Janet at Adventures in the 32-Aker Wood pointed me to I Love Mountains. Janet lives right next to a place where a mountain top is being removed for coal mining. Understandably she has had quite a lot to say about this recently. I'm still trying to process all of it. The I Love Mountains website allows you to track companies who are cutting off mountain tops and see whether the coal from these mines is being used by your local electricity supplier. Personally I do love mountains and I'd like to do something to help... still thinking about what that should be.
• If you want to find bloggers who live close to you, http://feedjit.com/ is a great resource. I guess they know from your ISP address where you are located and they serve you up local blogs with the highest rated at the top. What a useful little tool if you want to locate others nearby who share your interests.
• Watch out for the computer virus that comes in an e-mail and pretends to be UPS or FedEx trying to deliver a package to you. Read about the UPS/FedEx Delivery Failure Virus at Snopes.com. Actually my computer virus checker detected this on an e-mail I received this morning. If you've not received it yet it's likely only a matter of time!
• A week or so ago I somehow managed to discover something called Reborn Baby Dolls. These are baby dolls that ladies spend hours hand painting and crafting so that they are VERY realistic baby look-alikes. Although some of them are almost freaky, I can't help but admire the craftsmanship and patience that goes into these. Not only does the skin look very realistic, but they are weighted to resemble real newborn babies. You can read about reborn baby dolls and there are plenty of websites to browse, including DollsRealistic.com, WhoopsyDaisyBabies, and ButterflyBabiesbyBecky. If you were just wondering what to do with your spare time, take a little crawl around these sites, or look on e-bay for reborn dolls. Let me know what you think.

Brought to you by UsborneKC.com - meeting your Usborne Books needs in Kansas City and beyond (Johnson County, Kansas; Wichita, Kansas; Independence, Lee's Summit, North and South Kansas City, Pleasant Valley and Liberty, Missouri; Virginia and New Jersey).

Lessons I Learned From My Goldfish

Fish School at Amazon.com
Children can learn a lot from pets; in fact we all can if we stop and think about it. Most of the lessons seem simple, but perhaps they are actually profound.

The very first pet I ever part-owned was a goldfish, won at a carnival, and proudly carried home in a plastic bag. I was very, very excited about having a pet. After we got home Goldie was temporarily housed in a bucket until we could get to a pet store to secure an appropriate glass globe bowl for him. Once safely installed in his bowl, Goldie was overfed and under-cared-for to a dramatic extent. It's a testament to the toughness of goldfish that he lived for what seems to me like a long time (most likely several months), rather than a mere matter of hours. So what exactly can I thank Goldie, and the string of pet goldfish who followed, for?

1. There's stuff around us that we can't see. Somehow Goldie's bowl if left uncleaned would start to grow green algae. It was a great mystery to me how algae could appear apparently from nowhere. My parents' explanation that algae could come out of thin air seemed like magic, yet it taught me that there are great mysteries all around us and we can't always believe our eyes.
   
2. It takes energy to maintain a steady state. Goldie's bowl did not stay clean without effort on the part of my parents. I'm ashamed to say that when I was a child the way we cleaned out a goldfish bowl was as follows: on a weekly basis goldfish and water were tipped into our dishwashing bowl; the bowl was cleaned out with a cloth or sponge; fresh tapwater was put into Goldie's bowl; Goldie was caught in a jar or mug and emptied back into his nice, clean bowl. You'd have thought he'd be happy at that point.
   
3. Living things need clean water that is not polluted with chemicals. Abrupt change leads to shock. Since we'd paid no attention to getting rid of the chlorine in tap water or to getting the water up to room temperature Goldie was rather shocked on return to his bowl.
4. Alcohol makes you go kind of crazy. If Goldie's shock on return to his bowl looked like it was too much for him, the usual remedy was to add a few drops of brandy to his water. I kid you not! At that point he would zoom around his bowl at hyperspeed and either recover, or deteriorate quickly and be destined for flushing down the toilet.
5. We feel better if we take deliberate action, no matter if it is inappropriate and futile, rather than watching something go wrong while we fail to act. I'm sure that the brandy did not help Goldie one bit, but I hated to stand and watch him wobble around the bowl in his "nice, fresh, water" and felt that I should be doing something to help. Pleading with my parents caused them to bring out the brandy. At that point I felt I'd done my best to help him (or subsequent goldfish) whatever the outcome.

Apparently I could even have learned about operant conditioning by training Goldie. As it is, today while thinking about the Earth and our finite resources I was reminded of Goldie and his life in the goldfish bowl. I'm satisfied that goldfish toys would have been an unimportant distraction from the important things in life.

Thank you Goldie for some very important lessons and I'm sorry that I did not take better care of you :-(

* Green Cooking

This article can be found at Loving Nature's Garden.

Are Homeschoolers Environmentally Responsible?

Why are we spoiling this lovely planet? What are you doing to improve your environmental footprint? If we're not doing enough yet, why not?

It's been a LONG time since I attended elementary school, yet I remember clearly the first time I was told that we are spoiling our planet, that their was worry over the legacy being given to my generation, and that oil would not last forever. At age 12 it was really inconceivable to me that we would act this way. What are we going to do when everything we had that was lovely is spoiled? What is your small part in improving the way we live? Are homeschoolers as a group more environmentally responsible and aware? Are we doing enough yet, and if not why not?

Often-times it seems like I have more questions than answers. I know that I'd like to have zero environmental impact, yet that's not the reality. I don't like using gasoline, yet I drive a vehicle. I don't like the environmental cost of electricity, yet I live in a air-conditioned home. I believe in Organic farming, yet lots of non-Organic food passes my lips. I like to live simply, yet I live surrounded by things I could do without. I've often felt like a hypocrite. Why don't I do more?

I recently read a book that talked about change. If I could remember the title, I'd give it here. Do let me know if you recognize it! It said something like this - when the cost of not making a change exceeds the cost of making a change we will act. Maybe it's a no-brainer, but that explains a lot! This book was not just talking about the $$ cost either. Change is hard, most of us don't do it willingly.

OK, back to the question. Are homeschoolers environmentally responsible? Are they generally more environmentally responsible? Do we save gas by not driving the kids to school, but use it up visiting our friends instead? Do we grow our own vegetables instead of doing recess, or just shop at the store like everyone else? Do we spend time doing lessons that require learning about the environment and get busy doing science fair projects that develop environmentally conscious ideas? Do we wear Organic clothing, build our own homes, hang our laundry to dry, and purchase locally? Or are we as a group pretty much like everyone else?

What do you think?