There is only so much that a parent can teach their child about the environment and being green. Once children reach school age, they become subject to the views of other authority figures like teachers, and the peer pressure from other children.

It’s all very well, that they take heed of your green advice at home, but first chance your child gets away from you, they do the complete opposite, like visit that fast food joint, which you have expressed your environmental concerns over.

So it would really put you mind at rest, if you knew teachers were reinforcing all the environmental and green issues, which you have already taught your children, with appropriate activities and recommendations. Even if it is just simple things like making sure children put their finished cans in the provided recycling bins, or put their litter in the bin.

Even better though would be for teachers to incorporate good environmental advice into their lesson plans. In geography you could tell the children about the melting polar caps and how this could affect them. In biology you could talk about animals that have become extinct, or now are extinct and the importance of rainforest’s and world greenery. In history, you can teach children how the environment has changed over the last 1000 years.

Projects could potentially include the children growing organic vegetables in the school premises, and once they are grown having them in their school dinners. Other things could include organizing a neighborhood green awareness event, making a collage of why it is important to be green, or having a competition to find out who the ‘greenest’ kid in school is (with a nice prize).

Starting this green education at an early age will help ensure the next generation will grow up respecting the environment, with good recycling habits and knowledge instilled for the whole of their lives. This way we can make sure they do a better job at looking after the environment than this generation!

Make sure you teach the children that the safe rubber mulch surface in their playground is recycled rubber and is environmentally friendly. (If you don’t have rubber mulch as a surface in your playground then you can look into getting some from rubberecycle.com)

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 6:15 am and is filed under Environment, Mulch, Playground, Playground Safety, Recyelced Rubber, Rubber Mulch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.