Happy Earth Day (one day later)!

Seems only fitting we clean up the beach on Earth (Satur)Day.

 We joined other families from Oppe pick up trash between piers 45 & 61.

Tips for Raising Environmentally Friendly Kids

As parents, our goals revolve around our kids’ futures and preparing them to face the world around them. If we can provide our kids with a foundation early on to be mindful of their impact on their environments, we can collectively be responsible for helping slowly reverse the ecological damages our Earth has faced in the recent century.

Here are some simple tips for teaching your kids the basics of eco-friendly living. These are common sense practices that will not only help save our Earth’s resources, but will help families save money as well:

• Make sure your kids turn off the water when they brush their teeth to cut down on water consumption.
• Stress the importance of turning lights off when leaving a room.
• Enlist their help in switching from incandescent light bulbs to more energy saving compact fluorescents.
• Designate a “Green Day” each month when you take advantage of the outdoors, go to a local farmer’s market, avoid processed foods or gather up toys/clothes that are no longer needed and donate them
• Engage your kids in recycling tasks, allowing them to determine which item goes into which bin.
• Have your kids help hang clothes outside to dry and teach them about the power of the sun.
• Replace the numerous batteries for the toys in your house with rechargeables.
• Be like Michelle Obama and plant a garden with your kids. They may even be more willing to eat vegetables if they’ve grown them themselves.
• Use both sides of the paper when doing homework, coloring and drawing.
• Replace all those little plastic bags in school lunches with reusable plastic containers. If you must use the bags, ask that your child bring them back home so they can be recycled or re-used.
• Keep the car in the garage and walk with your kids to school a couple days a week.

The most important tip of all is to practice what you preach. If you are environmentally friendly and engage in all the behaviors you’re encouraging your kids to take part in, your kids are much more likely to adopt these practices.

It only takes small steps for all of us to make a big difference.  Source

HAPPY EARTH DAY!