By Harriet Blake
Green Right Now
If you’re looking for home projects, and eco-activities for kids this Earth Day season — or really anytime — the EPA has put together an online Earth Day Take Home Kit that features eight links to environmentally friendly interactive pages. Some aim to make eco-learning fun; others help explain environmental risks.
- The Environmental Kids Club includes question-and-answer pages on a variety of subjects
including water, air, trash and recycling as well as plants and animals. Each section poses a number of questions that are answering by clicking on each hot link. For example, under water, there’s a drawing that features people engaged in pollution-causing activities. The site asks players to identify these activities.
- Another page is called Live, Learn, Play. Here, participants tune into their health and environment by clicking on the sites links that cover a number of environmental concerns such as second-hand smoke, lead poisoning, carbon monoxide and pesticides. Activities are suggested on each page. For instance, under second-hand smoke, players create commercials about second-hand smoke, develop a handout on its dangers, write a newspaper article on the subject or organize a smoke-free day for the family or community.
- Tips to protect kids from environmental risks are the subject of another page. Some of these risks are: exposure to too much sun; avoid fish with high levels of mercury; safeguard kids from high levels of radon; promote healthier communities by walking, carpooling, bicycle riding.
- Another site features an interactive map that is updated throughout the day for the Air Quality Index. Viewers can click on their state for up-to-date air quality info, such as at 3 p.m. Friday, April 15, the air quality in the state of New York is generally listed as good. The state is broken down by cities, from Albany to Utica.
There’s also a website called Sunwise for Kids. It tells of the dangers of too much sun and includes a fun trivia game that teaches kids the benefits of wearing hats, sunglasses and sunscreen. The EPA also sponsors a Sunwise with Shade poster contest and recommends kids to ask their teachers about participating.
- The Planet Protector Club for Kids gives kids a “mission” in which they have to “improve the world around you by making less trash…and help other people learn to reduce, reuse, and recycle.” In one example, the participant must solve the question of the “broken loop” in which a nature cycle has been broken when an item that should have been recycled or reused ended up in the trash.
- Another EPA site covers drinking water and ground water for different age levels (K-3; 4-8; 9-12). Word scrambles, rainfall demos, animated games are all part of the activities recommended for this subject. For kids K-3, a flash-animated activity allows them to control the water cycle. For kids 9-12, they can learn how to build a watershed.
- A healthy lawn environment is also covered on the site. It teaches families about choosing the best plants for the year as well as integrated pest management.
Besides the Take Home Kit, the EPA website has an activity called Pick Five for the Environment in which participants select five actions they pledge to fulfill. The list of actions include using less water, less electricity, reduce/reuse/recycle, and commute without polluting. The idea is to then share that commitment with friends on Facebook, Twitter or with photos on Flickr.
You can also sign up for EPA’s daily green tip, by providing your email address.
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