In many city schools, students and teachers are making a difference in their communities with programs that reduce waste, encourage recycling, save energy, and conserve resources. Environmental education helps kids understand the environmental challenges of the 21st century, as they learn to appreciate and respect the natural resources that Mother Earth provides for all of us.
Since its first official celebration on April 22, 1970 — when 20 million Americans, energized by their love of our planet, marched in the streets to protest against air and water pollution — the original spirit of Earth Day still echoes across city neighborhoods in 2016, as kids and families try to do their part to help the environment.
Earth Day and an eco-friendly attitude
It may have started with hippies, flower children, and anti-Vietnam War protestors as a grass roots movement that flowered into a ginormous nation-wide event. But over the decades, Earth Day — celebrated every year on April 22 — has evolved into an environmental celebration that focuses on teaching modern-day tree-huggers, young and old, about going green, and the importance of sustainability and personal eco-responsibility. Some would call it an ecological trend that encourages each and every one of us to be mindful of the earth’s limitations and to conserve — at home and at the workplace — through recycling, composting, backyard or micro gardening, and saving energy by turning off lights and unplugging unused appliances.
This no-waste sensibility goes hand in hand with a conservationist attitude on the part of local schools, organizations, and companies.
In schools that use Project Learning Tree’s award-winning curriculum materials, like those covering all things energy, kids find out how we use it, and what we can do to conserve it. According to www.plt.org, the way America’s youth learn about the environment will largely determine the future quality life for generations to come. Quality environmental education teaches students the skills they need to be informed decision makers, and provides critical tools for a 21st-century workforce faced with devising solutions to increasingly complex environmental issues, like climate change and energy.
By incorporating energy education into elementary and middle school curricula, students will be engaged in real-world S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering, and math) learning, while they discover how individual and collective choices about energy use affect their lives and the whole planet.
How you can celebrate Earth Day
Younger kids can enjoy a hands-on nature and gardening adventure as they learn about sustainability with a fruit and vegetable garden, and four seasons garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. They can also check out plants and animals in a meadow, marsh, and woodland.
Though it doesn’t have specific Earth Day programming, the garden offers a wide array of family-friendly public programs to explore the environment.
“For more than 100 years, Brooklyn Botanic Garden has encouraged children and their families to learn about and appreciate the world of plants and the environment,” says Elizabeth Reina-Longoria, director of communications. “BBG’s newest space — the Discovery Garden for children — allows kids to closely explore habitats and have fun in nature, inspiring future generations of environmental stewards.”
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An Environmental Protection Agency educational website features a Planet Protectors Club for kids and teens, whose mission is to improve the world around them by making less trash. Planet Protectors also help other people learn to reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Kids can check out fun activities and games, while learning about reducing wastes and saving resources at: www3.epa.gov/epawaste/education/kids/planetprotectors/index.htm
Teens can get tips on daily choices they make that affect the environment, i.e. products, natural resources they use, etc.
The site lists eco-friendly tips:
• Use products made with recycled materials
• Use energy-efficient light bulbs and rechargeable batteries
• Shop with cloth bags
• Reuse plastic bags, cups, containers, etc.
• Repair items instead of throwing them away
• Compost your food and yard waste
How Earth Day changed the world
Forty-five years ago, industrial pollution was rampant. People were concerned about it and its negative effects on their health, but politicians, not so much. Surprisingly it took three proactive republicans to jump-start the new movement against environmental ignorance.
After witnessing the Santa Barbara oil spill that killed thousands of birds and fish in 1970, Earth Day founder and then-Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin had a brainstorm: Why not organize a huge grass roots protest over what was happening to the environment. So he announced that there would be a nationwide demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate (no social media then!). Nelson later wrote, “We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.”
Eventually, he teamed up with Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey, as well as a young activist, to teach folks about their environment.
In a 1993 piece Nelson wrote, “I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. The American people finally had a forum to express concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air — and they did so with spectacular exuberance.”
President Richard Nixon proposed the Environmental Protection Agency (launched on Dec. 2, 1970) after he signed an executive order. Landmark environmental laws went into effect, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and Estuary Protection Act.
Climate change is scary!
In an April 2015 huffi
But even in California, they didn’t expect five consecutive years of unprecedented drought.
Speier cites “sea level rise, ocean acidification, species extinctions, erratic weather events, decreased agricultural yields, harm to human health and lower worker productivity” as real and costly consequences of climate change. While many folks believe global warming is man-made, others say these events are natural and cyclical.
For more on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, visit www.bbg.org/
Tammy Scileppi is a Queens-based freelance writer and journalist, parent, and regular contributor to New York Parenting. Interviewing hundreds of New York City’s movers and shakers has been an amazing adventure for her. Scileppi’s work has appeared in a variety of media outlets. She has also written book cover copy for Simon and Schuster.
