6,250 tons

That's the amount of landfill that could be avoided if half the kids in America traded Halloween costumes instead of buying new ones! Swap costumes instead of tossing them away! Check out greenhalloween.org for other ways to have a fun, sustainable Halloween.

Complete Guide to a GREENER Summer

Week of Jun 05, 2011

10 Green Tips for a Weekend Party

Summer arrives June 21 – celebrate with the greenest shindig on the block

5 (Free) Smartphone Apps You Need This Summer

These iPhone & Android apps have everything you need

9 Ways to Ready Your Home for Summer

Conserve resources in your home the eco-smart way

Celebrate World Oceans Day Today, June 8!

Save the Oceans – Even if You’re Landlocked

VIDEO: Cousteau and NRDC on the Ocean

Top News:

Will Calif. Ban Foam Takeout Containers?

DOE to Award Students Who Save Energy

VIDEO: What Happens to Plastic Water Bottles?

Japan Goes Biz Casual to Prevent Energy Shortages

Panasonic to Open Appliance Recycling Factory in China

Why Aren’t Restaurants Recycling?

The Plastic Recycling Rate That Jumped 50 Percent

Is Corporate Sustainability for Real?

Earth911 asked on Facebook: Would you agree to office temps up to 82 to save energy – and get to dress casually – like the Japanese Ministry of Environment?

J. Jayroe says: I feel more productive when I’m dressed comfortably. All you need is a little fan :)
D. Hohmann says: Whatever you’ve gotta do to balance production and consumption for sustainability…

Read more and join the discussion!

Hear Richard Louv Speak on The Nature Principle at the Arboretum May 16th and 17th

Richard Louv will be appearing across the U.S. and Canada this spring in a series of book release events and presentations. These local appearances are open to the public and provide an excellent opportunity to introduce community members and potential partners to the goals and vision of the children and nature movement.

In his bestselling book Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv helped launch a vital dialog that spawned an international movement to reconnect children and nature. In his new book, The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder, Louv delivers another powerful call to action-this time for adults. He will be speaking about the book in various cities.

What do adults have to do with the children and nature movement? Plenty. While time in nature helps people of all ages vastly improve our physical, psychological and spiritual health, children cannot make the nature connection without the help of the adults in their lives. In addition, Louv suggests, it will take people of all ages, working together, to shift the cultural norms that apply to all of us, to address and restore the fundamental human need for nature that he describes in his book, calling on much current research to underscore his case.

The more high-tech our lives become, Louv writes, the more nature we need. The Nature Principle lays out a scenario that integrates nature into every aspect of our lives, from homes and family life to offices, urban planning and recreational spaces.

You can hear Richard Louv speak about The Nature Principle in the following cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Denver, Austin, Vancouver, Toronto and Saskatoon. You'll also be able to join him for live chats on Twitter, dates to be announced.

RICHARD LOUV and THE NATURE PRINCIPLE

May 16 & 17, 2011
Oswald Visitor Center

Richard Louv contends that the future belongs to the individuals, families, businesses and communities that not only conserve nature, but create nature everywhere. On May 16 & 17, Mr. Louv will discuss the "nature principle," sign copies of his new book, The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder (May 2011), and give the keynote address at a public policy conference on how interaction with nature improves the health of humans and the earth.

During this event you will learn that each of us has the power to restore our connection to nature. The impact of this renewed relationship can extend far beyond our own personal sphere of family and home to the workplace, schools, health-care and other community settings. Simply put, nature offers the antidote for many of the maladies of modern life, and by bringing more nature into our lives, the better off we will be.

MONDAY, MAY 16 - 6-9 p.m.
$35 members, $40 non-members

TUESDAY, MAY 17 - 7:30-12 noon
Richard Louv and The Nature Principle: Health, Nature, and the Quality of Life
$50 members, $65 non-members
.35 CEUs available

For more information and to register visit http://www.arboretum.umn.edu/richardlouvandnatureprinciple2011.aspx

EE Festivals abound!

Four elementary schools are busily planning and preparing for upcoming Environmental Festivals. Our district is unique in that we showcase our outdoor classroom spaces on special experiential days where all students and staff are conducting and participating in lessons outdoors. 

Jeffers Pond Elementary is having their festival on May 5
Glendale Elementary is having their festival on May 17  (Check out their wiki at http://eefest2011.wikispaces.com/)
Redtail Ridge Elementary is having their festival on May 19
Grainwood Elementary is having their festival on May 26

Why Kids Need Nature

Why Kids Need Nature

Experience and explore the great outdoors with your child — it's good for her!

Whether you grew up in a suburb, on a farm, or in a big city, you probably spent a lot of time playing outside, getting dirty, and coming home happy. Maybe you watched ants making anthills in your backyard, climbed trees in the park, or simply lay in the grass contemplating the drifting clouds. Unfortunately, young children today do not have as many direct experiences with nature, and it's taking a toll. Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, maintains that this disconnect from the natural world is producing ill effects in both mind and body. But he's optimistic that well-meaning, forward-thinking parents and educators can close the kid-nature gap. "We should not think of a child's experience in nature as an extracurricular activity," says Louv. "It should be thought of as vital to children's health and development." The editors of Scholastic's Parent & Child talked with Louv about his book.

Parent & Child: Why do children need a meaningful relationship with nature?
Richard Louv: Research suggests that a connection to nature is biologically innate; as humans, we have an affinity for the natural world. When children spend most of their time indoors, they miss out. Problems associated with alienation from nature include familiar maladies: depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. Kids who have direct access to nature are better learners. Exposure to nature has been shown to reduce stress and increase attention spans.

When a child is out in nature, all the senses get activated. He is immersed in something bigger than himself, rather than focusing narrowly on one thing, such as a computer screen. He's seeing, hearing, touching, even tasting. Out in nature, a child's brain has the chance to rejuvenate, so the next time he has to focus and pay attention, perhaps in school, he'll do better.

But even if kids don't have any of the specific problems mentioned above, kids who don't get out much lack the sense of wonder that only nature can provide. I've taken kids into the woods who've never been there. At first, they're scared because it's unfamiliar, but then you can see them open up and start exploring.

P&C: What's changed over the past generation or so that's caused this disconnect with the natural world?
Louv: There are some obvious reasons, such as the fact that many families are overscheduled, which chips away at leisure time. Parental fears — of traffic, of crime, even of nature itself, such as with Lyme disease or the West Nile virus — also play a big role in keeping kids indoors. What's unfortunate is that these fears have been overamplified by the media, and the overall effect is that kids spend more time in their homes, or very close to home.

In many places, children's access to nature has been cut off. The woods at the end of the cul-de-sac were made into a new subdivision. New neighborhoods are carefully planned, and as a result, they often dramatically restrict what kids can do with nature. Even parks are manicured — there may be a nice smooth soccer field or a baseball diamond but no rough edges. Rough edges are the places children gravitate toward to explore, where they find rocks and weeds and bugs. Efforts to provide nice-looking and safe outdoor spaces are well intentioned, but they give kids the message that nature is not something you go out in to get your hands dirty.

P&C: Don't children in rural areas still have access to nature — and haven't city kids always been restricted from participating in it?
Louv: Interestingly, the answer is no to both questions. These days, kids in rural areas are just as indoor focused as their suburban peers, and for the same reasons — parental fears, less unscheduled time, an emphasis on computers and other indoor activities. And while we might think that, historically, kids in cities have had limited contact with the natural world, it's not always true. In older cities, especially, there are lots of green spaces, lots of unplanned areas like vacant lots. Sure, it's not the woods, but when we talk about nature it's not about the kind of nature, it's about children having the opportunity and freedom to explore what's out there in their surroundings. That may mean a city park, a farm, a patch of woods in a suburb — even a tiny roof garden counts.

P&C: What can parents do to help their children get the safe outdoor experiences they need?
Louv: You would think it would be ideal to let kids run loose and come back dirty and happy at end of the day, but in reality this is not likely to happen anymore. We have to come up with new ways for kids to have direct contact with nature. This probably means parents have to get out there with their kids, and explore with them. Schools, too, including preschools, can incorporate natural surroundings. In many schools in Western Europe, nature is incorporated into the design of child care centers and schools, and there have been positive results in terms of kids' attention spans and stress levels.

A lot of parents are already doing the right thing, almost instinctively. Perhaps they remember how they used to play, and strive to provide the same thing for their kids. While they may not let their kids roam free in the neighborhood, they do take their children hiking or let them run around in the local park.

P&C: What are some easy ways to experience nature with preschool-age children?
Louv: The best thing you can do is to be enthusiastic about nature yourself. Go out in your backyard. Instead of a manicured lawn or garden, leave some spots untamed so kids can dig in the dirt and find rocks or interesting weeds. If you have a vegetable garden, have your child help you plant seeds or pick tomatoes. Even walking to your local park can be a nature walk to a preschooler — he can collect leaves, you can point out trees and bushes and show him the bugs crawling along the curb. Let your kids get down in the dirt so they can see at eye level the whole universe there. Nature is good for everyone's mental health. Nature isn't the problem; it's the solution.

How the city hurts your brain

...And what you can do about it

By Jonah Lehrer

January 2, 2009

THE CITY HAS always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 18th-century coffeehouses of London, where citizens gathered to discuss chemistry and radical politics, to the Left Bank bars of modern Paris, where Pablo Picasso held forth on modern art. Without the metropolis, we might not have had the great art of Shakespeare or James Joyce; even Einstein was inspired by commuter trains.

 

(Yuko Shimizu for the Boston Globe)

And yet, city life isn't easy. The same London cafes that stimulated Ben Franklin also helped spread cholera; Picasso eventually bought an estate in quiet Provence. While the modern city might be a haven for playwrights, poets, and physicists, it's also a deeply unnatural and overwhelming place.

Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.

"The mind is a limited machine,"says Marc Berman, a psychologist at the University of Michigan and lead author of a new study that measured the cognitive deficits caused by a short urban walk. "And we're beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations."

One of the main forces at work is a stark lack of nature, which is surprisingly beneficial for the brain. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they can see trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartment overlooks a grassy courtyard. Even these fleeting glimpses of nature improve brain performance, it seems, because they provide a mental break from the urban roil.

This research arrives just as humans cross an important milestone: For the first time in history, the majority of people reside in cities. For a species that evolved to live in small, primate tribes on the African savannah, such a migration marks a dramatic shift. Instead of inhabiting wide-open spaces, we're crowded into concrete jungles, surrounded by taxis, traffic, and millions of strangers. In recent years, it's become clear that such unnatural surroundings have important implications for our mental and physical health, and can powerfully alter how we think.

This research is also leading some scientists to dabble in urban design, as they look for ways to make the metropolis less damaging to the brain. The good news is that even slight alterations, such as planting more trees in the inner city or creating urban parks with a greater variety of plants, can significantly reduce the negative side effects of city life. The mind needs nature, and even a little bit can be a big help.

Consider everything your brain has to keep track of as you walk down a busy thoroughfare like Newbury Street. There are the crowded sidewalks full of distracted pedestrians who have to be avoided; the hazardous crosswalks that require the brain to monitor the flow of traffic. (The brain is a wary machine, always looking out for potential threats.) There's the confusing urban grid, which forces people to think continually about where they're going and how to get there.

The reason such seemingly trivial mental tasks leave us depleted is that they exploit one of the crucial weak spots of the brain. A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to constantly redirect our attention so that we aren't distracted by irrelevant things, like a flashing neon sign or the cellphone conversation of a nearby passenger on the bus. This sort of controlled perception -- we are telling the mind what to pay attention to -- takes energy and effort. The mind is like a powerful supercomputer, but the act of paying attention consumes much of its processing power.

Natural settings, in contrast, don't require the same amount of cognitive effort. This idea is known as attention restoration theory, or ART, and it was first developed by Stephen Kaplan, a psychologist at the University of Michigan. While it's long been known that human attention is a scarce resource -- focusing in the morning makes it harder to focus in the afternoon -- Kaplan hypothesized that immersion in nature might have a restorative effect.

Imagine a walk around Walden Pond, in Concord. The woods surrounding the pond are filled with pitch pine and hickory trees. Chickadees and red-tailed hawks nest in the branches; squirrels and rabbits skirmish in the berry bushes. Natural settings are full of objects that automatically capture our attention, yet without triggering a negative emotional response -- unlike, say, a backfiring car. The mental machinery that directs attention can relax deeply, replenishing itself.

"It's not an accident that Central Park is in the middle of Manhattan," says Berman. "They needed to put a park there."

In a study published last month, Berman outfitted undergraduates at the University of Michigan with GPS receivers. Some of the students took a stroll in an arboretum, while others walked around the busy streets of downtown Ann Arbor.

The subjects were then run through a battery of psychological tests. People who had walked through the city were in a worse mood and scored significantly lower on a test of attention and working memory, which involved repeating a series of numbers backwards. In fact, just glancing at a photograph of urban scenes led to measurable impairments, at least when compared with pictures of nature.

"We see the picture of the busy street, and we automatically imagine what it's like to be there," says Berman. "And that's when your ability to pay attention starts to suffer."

This also helps explain why, according to several studies, children with attention-deficit disorder have fewer symptoms in natural settings. When surrounded by trees and animals, they are less likely to have behavioral problems and are better able to focus on a particular task.

Studies have found that even a relatively paltry patch of nature can confer benefits. In the late 1990s, Frances Kuo, director of the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois, began interviewing female residents in the Robert Taylor Homes, a massive housing project on the South Side of Chicago.

Kuo and her colleagues compared women randomly assigned to various apartments. Some had a view of nothing but concrete sprawl, the blacktop of parking lots and basketball courts. Others looked out on grassy courtyards filled with trees and flowerbeds. Kuo then measured the two groups on a variety of tasks, from basic tests of attention to surveys that looked at how the women were handling major life challenges. She found that living in an apartment with a view of greenery led to significant improvements in every category.

"We've constructed a world that's always drawing down from the same mental account," Kuo says. "And then we're surprised when [after spending time in the city] we can't focus at home."

But the density of city life doesn't just make it harder to focus: It also interferes with our self-control. In that stroll down Newbury, the brain is also assaulted with temptations -- caramel lattes, iPods, discounted cashmere sweaters, and high-heeled shoes. Resisting these temptations requires us to flex the prefrontal cortex, a nub of brain just behind the eyes. Unfortunately, this is the same brain area that's responsible for directed attention, which means that it's already been depleted from walking around the city. As a result, it's less able to exert self-control, which means we're more likely to splurge on the latte and those shoes we don't really need. While the human brain possesses incredible computational powers, it's surprisingly easy to short-circuit: all it takes is a hectic city street.

"I think cities reveal how fragile some of our 'higher' mental functions actually are," Kuo says. "We take these talents for granted, but they really need to be protected."

Related research has demonstrated that increased "cognitive load" -- like the mental demands of being in a city -- makes people more likely to choose chocolate cake instead of fruit salad, or indulge in a unhealthy snack. This is the one-two punch of city life: It subverts our ability to resist temptation even as it surrounds us with it, from fast-food outlets to fancy clothing stores. The end result is too many calories and too much credit card debt.

City life can also lead to loss of emotional control. Kuo and her colleagues found less domestic violence in the apartments with views of greenery. These data build on earlier work that demonstrated how aspects of the urban environment, such as crowding and unpredictable noise, can also lead to increased levels of aggression. A tired brain, run down by the stimuli of city life, is more likely to lose its temper.

Long before scientists warned about depleted prefrontal cortices, philosophers and landscape architects were warning about the effects of the undiluted city, and looking for ways to integrate nature into modern life. Ralph Waldo Emerson advised people to "adopt the pace of nature," while the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted sought to create vibrant urban parks, such as Central Park in New York and the Emerald Necklace in Boston, that allowed the masses to escape the maelstrom of urban life.

Although Olmsted took pains to design parks with a variety of habitats and botanical settings, most urban greenspaces are much less diverse. This is due in part to the "savannah hypothesis," which argues that people prefer wide-open landscapes that resemble the African landscape in which we evolved. Over time, this hypothesis has led to a proliferation of expansive civic lawns, punctuated by a few trees and playing fields.

However, these savannah-like parks are actually the least beneficial for the brain. In a recent paper, Richard Fuller, an ecologist at the University of Queensland, demonstrated that the psychological benefits of green space are closely linked to the diversity of its plant life. When a city park has a larger variety of trees, subjects that spend time in the park score higher on various measures of psychological well-being, at least when compared with less biodiverse parks.

"We worry a lot about the effects of urbanization on other species," Fuller says. "But we're also affected by it. That's why it's so important to invest in the spaces that provide us with some relief."

When a park is properly designed, it can improve the function of the brain within minutes. As the Berman study demonstrates, just looking at a natural scene can lead to higher scores on tests of attention and memory. While people have searched high and low for ways to improve cognitive performance, from doping themselves with Red Bull to redesigning the layout of offices, it appears that few of these treatments are as effective as simply taking a walk in a natural place.

Given the myriad mental problems that are exacerbated by city life, from an inability to pay attention to a lack of self-control, the question remains: Why do cities continue to grow? And why, even in the electronic age, do they endure as wellsprings of intellectual life?

Recent research by scientists at the Santa Fe Institute used a set of complex mathematical algorithms to demonstrate that the very same urban features that trigger lapses in attention and memory -- the crowded streets, the crushing density of people -- also correlate with measures of innovation, as strangers interact with one another in unpredictable ways. It is the "concentration of social interactions" that is largely responsible for urban creativity, according to the scientists. The density of 18th-century London may have triggered outbreaks of disease, but it also led to intellectual breakthroughs, just as the density of Cambridge -- one of the densest cities in America -- contributes to its success as a creative center. One corollary of this research is that less dense urban areas, like Phoenix, may, over time, generate less innovation.

The key, then, is to find ways to mitigate the psychological damage of the metropolis while still preserving its unique benefits. Kuo, for instance, describes herself as "not a nature person," but has learned to seek out more natural settings: The woods have become a kind of medicine. As a result, she's better able to cope with the stresses of city life, while still enjoying its many pleasures and benefits. Because there always comes a time, as Lou Reed once sang, when a person wants to say: "I'm sick of the trees/take me to the city."

Jonah Lehrer is the author of the new book "How We Decide." His first book was "Proust Was a Neuroscientist." He is a regular contributor to Ideas.

Sidewalk Salt and the Effects on Lakes and Rivers

Sidewalk salt: It’ll keep you on your feet, but too much is bad for lakes and rivers

Submitted by Lori Carlson on November 29, 2010 - 6:00am, Prior Lake American

By Dan Miller, Guest Commentary

Where does sidewalk salt go after it melts the ice and snow on our driveways and sidewalks?
This salty water flows into our storm ponds, wetlands, rivers and lakes. And high concentrations of sidewalk salt (sodium chloride) in our water negatively affect wildlife habitat and water quality, including the water we drink.
This winter, we can protect our water resources by trying these snow season tips:
* Use shovels, snow blowers and ice scrapers to remove snow and ice.
* Use de-icers like sidewalk salt sparingly and clean up any extra.
* Save the leftover sidewalk salt to use again after another snowfall.
* Buy environmentally friendly de-icers, which are better for our water, pets and landscapes.

* Treat the pavement before a snowfall with liquid salt brine (23-percent salt mixed with water).

* If you notice excess salt on a parking lot or sidewalk near you, talk to the property owner about safer alternatives.
Our lakes and rivers may freeze over this winter, but we still need to remember that what we put on our driveways and sidewalks will eventually end up in the nearest lake or river. Clean driveways and sidewalks mean clean water.
Dan Miller is coordinator for the Scott Clean Water Education Program. Contact Dan at (952)492-5424 or dmiller@co.scott.mn.us.

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RECYCLE YOUR HOLIDAYS

(credit: CBS)

From sgendreau

It’s that time of year again, bring out your holiday lights and detangle the wadded mess! But what do you do with the strings that no longer light up?  Don’t throw them out, RECYCLE YOUR HOLIDAYS^TM!

Home Energy Squad from Xcel Energy and Centerpoint Energy and ACE Hardware invite you to drop off your holiday lights at participating Ace Hardware locations. Collection bins will also be located at WCCO TV, so feel free to drop them off when you make your trip to the 2010 Target Holidazzle Parade.

In partnership with the Recycling Association of Minnesota, RECYCLE YOUR HOLIDAYS^TM is a recycling program that disassembles every single part of your used light strings without it going into the landfills.  Plus, your donations will provide employment, training and job opportunities through Project for Pride in Living and Adult Training and Habilitation Center.

List of participating Ace Hardware locations.

RECYCLE YOUR HOLIDAYS^TM Presented by:

Student Input Needed for DNR Parks and Trails

We’re now launching the first Students Speak Out project on Citizens League’s own software platform – CitiZing! Youth and adults like you are coming together to inform the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (the DNR) about your experiences with Minnesota’s Parks and Trails as well as your ideas about how to spend the legacy funds (new tax dollars MN’s voted to specifically be targeted toward parks and trails in the 2008 election).

This will be a 5 week discussion, with one poll and discussion per week. The first discussion (up right now) will last 2 weeks. After all the discussions, a plan for spending the funds will be drawn up based on what we learn from you. You’ll have a chance to review and comment on the results, and then they’ll be submitted to the Minnesota Legislature!

Here’s how you get started (6 steps: about 15 minutes of your time):

1.       Sign-up for CitiZing and customize your page.

2.       Join the SSO DNR Project for teens: http://www.citizing.org/projects/ssodnr : Adults please join here http://www.citizing.org/projects/parkslegacy

3.       Click on “Introduce yourself” and share one thing you love about Minnesota Parks and Trails.

4.       Take the weekly quick poll: What milestones and markers will we (the DNR) reach in 3-5 years that show we're on the right path with the legacy funds?

5.       Elaborate on your weekly quick poll answer in the weekly discussion.

6.       Visit the SSO Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/studentsspeakout   If you haven’t already, please “like” it. Facebook is a great way to stay informed as new polls and discussions come up.

Lastly, please help us spread the word. Please forward this email to your friends and family.

Recycling Glass is Where it's At!

Look here for reasons and reminders on why recycling glass is important!

Project FeederWatch - Engage with the Outdoors with an Easy Family Activity

By sharing information about which birds visit their feeders between November and April, backyard and schoolyard bird watchers can help scientists track changes in bird numbers and movements from year to year. You and your students can be part of Project FeederWatch, a citizen-science program from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada for people of all ages and skill levels. The program can help engage children in nature study and scientific investigation by encouraging careful observation and note-taking; stimulating children to ask questions about the natural world; promoting independent study; and providing opportunities for meaningful internet use and exploration.

Bird counting begins on November 13. Register at the Project FeederWatch website. The site also contains a live “bird cam,” bird photographs, information on birds and bird feeding, and tips for identifying various species.

No Child Left Inside

Unplug your kids and kick them outside!

Photo by AP Wideworld Photos

“Every child,” wrote pioneer botanist Luther Burbank, “should have mud pies, grasshoppers, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pinecones, rocks to roll, snakes, huckleberries and hornets. And any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education.”
In our education-obsessed culture, elite kids play piano and speak three languages by the age of four, but just about every North American kid is deprived. In one of the greatest retreats ever, children are vanishing from a critical piece of territory: their own backyards.

And there isn’t a kid on the planet who knows what a huckleberry is, other than a character in a Mark Twain book.

For the average kid only spends 30 minutes a day outside, an amount that shrinks yearly. In this brave new world of Facebook and YouTube, Twitter and Google, iPod and Wii, kids are tuned in to technology, and kindergartners start school with 5,000 hours of TV under their belts.

Typical tweens put in a 40-hour week – a virtual full-time job – watching screens: TV, laptop, cell phone, and so on. They can name dozens of corporate logos and celebrities on sight – Lady Gaga! Justin Bieber! The cast from Glee! – but they cannot name three animals that live in their neighborhood, or three plants.
A first grader can sing every lyric of “Bad Romance,” God help us, but has no idea what a chickadee sounds like.

Adults are colluding in this retreat. Our school system has chained kids to their desks, number 2 pencils glued to their hands. If a kid is outside playing sports, it’s not a pickup game in the sandlot but a league organized by overzealous parents carpooling kids endlessly from one game to the next.

And the geographic world they wander is collapsing like a black hole into their laptops; the typical kid today roams a world only one-ninth the size a child of the ‘70s did. I wandered Long Island’s rapidly decreasing pine forests in the ‘60s, biking and hiking unthinkable distances, alone and with friends, with neither a cell phone nor a dime to make a call. Because inside our houses were the adults, and who wanted to be there? Every last child was outside, in the street, in the yard, on the corner, at the 7-Eleven.

But letting kids go into a forest alone today is unthinkable, heretical. Remember that kid who was allowed to take the train in New York alone? “Child abuse!” we screamed at his parents. Even my own kids, raised by me, a naturalist, have never been allowed to go unattended into a forest. I am always there: stranger danger, ticks and West Nile have all taken their toll, even on me.

This radical retreat from the great outdoors, now called “nature-deficit disorder,” a phrase coined by journalist Richard Louv in his groundbreaking book Last Child in the Woods, is the greatest health catastrophe facing Western kids.

Ever.

Asthma rates are climbing. Attention-deficit disorders are through the roof. Obesity rates skyrocket; diabetes, linked to weight, soaring. Kids who watch too much TV don’t physically move, change the working of their brains and even eat more poorly than other children; there is a distinct inverse relationship between TV use and the amount of vegetables in one’s diet. This next generation might not live as long as their parents.

At the same time, numerous studies indicate kids are physically and mentally healthier if they spend time outdoors and in nature. They calm down when surrounded by green, which seems to ameliorate their ADD. And free play outside lets children develop social skills they can’t get from tube-watching (or from playing sports under adult supervision), and their skills are more age-appropriate as well.

Here’s the kicker: Studies indicate that learning through nature-based programs helps kids score higher on standardized tests. Want your kid to go to Harvard? Have her study outdoors.

But change is blowing in the wind. Louv’s book, the first-ever environmental education bestseller, jump-started an international movement that gave birth to a web site, the Children and Nature Network. Places as disparate as nature centers and urban parks are unveiling natural playscapes: areas where kids can linger and climb rocks, play with sticks, push sand and gravel around, get muddy – do lots of delicious nothing. Nature preschools are becoming popular, too, as places where toddlers spend quality time outdoors. Even middle schools are developing nature-based curricula where the bulk of the student’s school day is given to studying the environment to integrate math, language and social studies into the real world.

In the United States, some 1,600 NGOs representing 50 million people have organized into a No Child Left Inside coalition, a spin on the Bush-era name for his education bill, lobbying Obama for statewide environmental literacy plans that include children spending quality time outdoors.

But it’s a long climb, for culture is the very air our children breathe, and culture conspires to convince kids that everything important can be found in that little box. We’ve seduced children indoors.

Now childhood itself is an endangered species. If we are going to save either the environment or our children, we have to take a surprisingly simple but very radical first step.

End the Great Green Retreat. Unplug our kids and kick them outside. To play. And hear chickadees. And find huckleberries.

Writer-naturalist Mike Weilbacher directs a nature center near Philadelphia.

Recycling Gets Spooky

by Lauren Hasler
Published on October 19th, 2009

Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain – whatever you may call the 31st day of October, the traditions of both tricks (and treats) enchant imaginations around the world on this haunted evening.

To add to the array of creepy costumes, ominous decor and an unearthly consumption of sweet treats, we think it only fitting to provide some spine-chilling facts and tips about the wicked fun of going green on All Hallow’s Eve… and beyond.

A Harrowing Halloween

Ghosts and goblins won’t be the only things giving you nightmares:

Historians date the modern take on Halloween back to the mid-1800s, when Irish immigrants brought the tradition to the U.S. during the Great Famine. Photo: Flickr/stevechasmar

• 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins were produced in 2008 by major pumpkin-producing states such as Illinois, California, Pennsylvania and New York. Many are used each fall for jack-o’-lanterns and pumpkin pies. Once Halloween is over, you can reuse or recycle your pumpkin.
• A 2008 National Retail Foundation survey found that 64.5 percent of people celebrate Halloween in some way. That’s a higher number than the individual recycling rates of aluminum, glass, paper and plastic bottles.
• Each Halloween, an estimated $40 per capita is spent on candy, decorations and greeting cards, all of which produce large amounts of waste.
• Leaves can account for 75 percent of the solid waste stream in the fall.
• Americans consumed 23.8 pounds of candy per capita in 2008. Most of the wrappers are made of mixed materials, making it difficult to recycle them.
• An estimated 80,000,000 Hershey’s Kisses are wrapped each day, using enough aluminum foil to cover more than 50 acres of space, the equivalent of almost 40 football fields.
• The U.S. spends almost $4 billion annually on electricity lost to “vampire power,” according to the International Energy Agency. Vampire power, also known as “phantom load,” is the electricity that electronics and appliances use while they are turned off or in standby mode.

(See more about this video and experience augmented reality at VampirePowerSucks)

Frightening Recycling

The results from skipping out on this simple step are simply spine-tingling:

• Each ton of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatts of energy and 7,000 gallons of water. This represents a 64 percent energy savings, a 58 percent water savings and 60 pounds less of air pollution.
• In 2007, we generated 3.01 million tons of e‐waste in the U.S. Of this amount, only 410,000 tons (or 13.6 percent) was recycled, according to the EPA. The rest was sent to landfills or incinerators.
• To produce each week’s Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down. Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees. If all our newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year.
• Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour. Most of them are thrown away.
• Recycling just one ton of aluminum cans conserves the equivalent of 36 barrels of oil, or 1,665 gallons of gasoline.
• The EPA estimates that 75 percent of our waste is recyclable. However, the current national is about 33 percent. The difference? Scary.

According to tradition, pumpkins are carved to ward off evil spirits. Photo: Flickr/WxMom

Creepy Crawly Conservation

The eerie effects of waste:

• A modern glass bottle would take 4,000 years or more to decompose. That number is even higher if it’s in a landfill.
• Every year, each American throws out about 1,200 pounds of organic garbage that can be composted.
• Since 1990, the total amount of municipal solid waste going to landfills dropped by about 5 million tons from 142.3 million to 137.2 million tons in 2007.
• Every year, Americans produce enough polystyrene cups to circle the earth 436 times.
• Americans throw away enough disposable plates and cups to give the world a picnic six times a year.
• If the U.S. cut office paper use by just 10 percent, it would prevent the emission of 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gases – the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road.
• Americans’ total yearly waste would fill a convoy of garbage trucks long enough to wrap around the earth six times or reach halfway to the moon.

So what’s the take-home message? When you’re roaming the dark streets on Halloween, don’t forget your garlic, flashlight and your eco-smarts. Even though the ghoulish evening is cause for celebration the world over, there’s nothing more bone-chilling than leaving your green out of the festivities on this day and throughout the rest of the year.

Outdoor Education and Play Benefit All Education

The following is taken from here. 

A new report from the National Wildlife Federation, Back to School: Back Outside, shows how outdoor education and time is connected with wide-ranging academic benefits including:

• Improved classroom behavior
• Increased student motivation and enthusiasm to learn
• Better performance in math, science, reading and social studies
• Reduced Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Higher scores on standardized tests (including college entrance exams)
• Help under-resourced, low-income students perform measurably better in school

This corresponds with research and studies that the Children & Nature Network has synthesized in its report, Children’s Contact with the Outdoors and Nature: A Focus on Educators and Educational Settings.
The report reviews research focused on the physical, mental, and social benefits that contact with the outdoors and nature provides to children. There is a lot of information on the relationships between children’s outdoor-related behavior and their school performance and learning. Topics covered include such important programs and attributes as:

• Recess
• School gardens
• Field trips and hands-on outdoor learning
• Natural views

Also included in the report are academic benefits from outdoor learning and play, such as:

• Academic achievement
• Higher test scores
• Increased responsibility
• Community benefit

It’s wonderful to have additional research that strengthens the case that outdoor education and time in nature benefits all education.

Click here for the full report.

How about a GREEN Halloween??

Have a Green Halloween®… at school!

If a Halloween or Harvest celebration is something you’re planning for your class, why not add a healthy and or green twist to things? Here are some easy, affordable and fun ideas that create an opportunity for learning, too.
Food

• Choose healthy or healthy-er options when available
• Look for local foods (like apples and pumpkins) – some of which may be donated
• If possible, consider products that contain organically grown ingredients
• Think whole & colorful. What can you serve or make that is made from orange, black and green foods? How about a black olive, green and orange bell pepper pizza on a whole wheat crust?
• If your school permits, toss ALL food scraps and leftovers in the yard waste/compost bin instead of in the trash.
• Don’t use disposables (cups, plates, etc.) – try to find something reusable, or ask parents to provide place settings for their kids. Make teams and see who can bring more (they get a prize). Ask kids to bring in a story about their family’s traditions, along with their place setting.
• Do not offer bottled water. Have a filter instead.
• Make sure that all drink containers are recycled.
• Plan for only enough food/drink as you need.
• Ask the students and teachers to bring canned or dried food that will later be donated to your local food bank.

Activities

• # Teens and ‘tweens can learn to make wallets, purses and bracelets from candy wrappers (search the internet for “candy wrapper purse” for ideas).
• Make Halloween art/ décor only from recycled goods or things found in nature.
• Have a Green Halloween? inspired door decorating contest.
• Teach students to make homemade face paints.
• Make leaf rubbing art.
• Make “treat & treasure” bags from recycled goods or old pillow cases.
• Make some Halloween décor or gift items for people at a retirement community or for a local farmer.
• Have your party at a local organic pumpkin farm.
• Make a Halloween-themed bean-bag toss game out of recycled boxes.
• Have a Halloween-themed obstacle course – children have to put on one piece of a costume at each station.
• For little ones – have a pumpkin pass game, or do “witches limbo.”
• Have an eco-themed costume contest.
• Make a haunted house or one of those carnival cut-outs where the kids stick their heads through (and you can take a picture) - out of only recycled materials.
• Make a treasure out of trash. Send the kids on a mission to collect litter in fall colors: orange, black, red, brown or gold. Use the pieces to make a fall collage. (Covering recycled soup cans make for great pencil holders, too!)
• Host a “zero” waste party where everything must be consumed, reused/ repurposed, composted or recycled
• Read stories on the history of Halloween and “write the future” that includes healthier and more Earth-friendly traditions.
• Make ‘jack-o-lantern’ oranges or ‘goblin’ sweet potatoes using toothpicks and raisins, cranberries, pepper strips or other items for the faces.
• Host a Green Halloween-inspired party for others (such as at a retirement home or hospital)
• Host a post-Halloween candy exchange and composting party

Goodies

• Give less “treats” than you gave last year (i.e. one instead of handfuls)
• Look at Green Halloween’s list of treats and treasures and choose what will work for your school.
• Plan ahead. If you order on line, you may save money and be able to find healthy and eco-wise choices, but be sure to allow enough time for shipping.

Décor

• Reuse classroom décor from last year.
• Commit not to buying anything new.
• Consider using mostly décor from nature – pumpkins, gourds, apples, hay, etc.
• Hit up a thrift store and see what you can find there.
• Make Halloween themed banners and other décor items from recycled, reused or repurposed materials.
• Reuse everything you’ve used this year, next year.

Waste & cleaning

• Compost all food scraps and natural décor items. Even candy (unwrapped) can be composted or put in the yard waste bin. Pizza boxes and other food contaminated paper/ cardboard items may also be composted/ included in yard waste.
• Recycle anything that can be: aluminum cans, water bottles, cups, food containers, etc.
• Use healthier cleaning supplies – vinegar and water works wonders!

Teachers may ask Won’t it cost more? No. In many cases, the cost is equivalent or less than what you’ve paid for candy, décor and other items for this event in year’s past.

Won’t the kids be upset? Green Halloween participated in numerous Halloween events last year and came face to face with thousands of children. We asked them what they would think if someone gave them one of the alternative goodies we had on our display instead of regular candy. After seeing the alternatives, not one single child of any age said they would rather have candy. Not one. Kids feel good when the adults around them model positive attitudes. If you’re excited about it – they will be too.

Is there a happy medium? Sure! Going healthy and green can happen in leaps and bounds or in baby steps. Either way, when changes are made for the better, they always count. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. One idea is to hand out 50% candy and 50% something else. Or just give away less than you did last year. You may have lots of other ideas as well.

Like what you see? Feel inspired?
We can’t wait to see what you come up with! Let us know if you plan on taking healthy & green steps this year during your school Halloween event and we can post your event on our calendar. Also, be sure to take photos and send us your students’ stories, we’d love to feature you and your kids on our website.

…Who knew Halloween could be such a great learning tool?

Excerpt taken from http://greenhalloween.org/content.php?page=schools

Why Environmental Education at PLSAS? Reason #2...

Ever paid attention to all those commercials on TV or the radio?  What about the billboards scattered along the roadways?  What about during a stroll in the mall or a park?  Next time you're watching TV or listening to the radio or riding along on a roadtrip or walking along...pay attention.  How many commercials or signs or postings are devoted to something related to the environment? You'll discover the answer is A LOT!!  And you know what...there's going to be a lot more in our future.

In Prior Lake-Savage we are preparing our students for the future...and that future includes jobs and a life focused on the environment...sustaining it, conserving it and being aware of it.

   

Why Environmental Education at PLSAS?

Research illustrates time and time again that outdoor instruction or instruction blending environmental topics into core curricular areas creates authentic learning opportunities allowing for increased critical thinking opportunities; decreased symptoms of ADD, Autism, etc.; increased reading scores; decreased behavior discipline issues, etc.

For details on the research visit Children and Nature Network or click here

Don't Trash the Phone Book

Did you know a 1992 Minnesota law bans the disposal of telephone directories in trash?  Did you know 100% of telephone directories are recyclable?  Directories today are printed on paper that is either recycled or made from leftover woodchips from the lumber industry so no new trees are necessary to make directory paper.  Publishers have also turned to soy-based inks and have repaginated and redesigned their phone book layouts to minimize paper usage. 

Don't want a phone book delivered to you any more?  Minnesota has a brand new site providing the option for MN residents to opt out of receiving the phone book.  Check it out here

Thank you Sailer's Greenhouse!!!!

A BIG THANK YOU to Sailer's Greenhouse for the donation of 15 flats of native perennials for our outdoor classrooms across the District! 

Please support their business!  They have the most beautiful mums right now.

Check out Sailor's here

Here are some Kids Company students planting Big Bluestem, Sideoat Grama and Indian Grass in the Jeffers Pond prairie.

Why should you recycle?

Feeling overwhelmed and hopeless about the state our of natural resources? Recycle.
Realizing how much you spend on waste removal each month? Recycle.
Observing trash along the roadside? Recycle.

Here's a top 5 for why you should RECYCLE....

• Saves Natural Resources - By making products from recycled materials instead of virgin materials, we conserve land and reduce the need to drill for oil and dig for minerals.
• Saves Energy - It usually takes less energy to make recycled products; recycled aluminum, for example, takes 95% less energy than new aluminum from bauxite ore.
• Saves Clean Air and Water - In most cases, making products from recycled materials creates less air pollution and water pollution than making products from virgin materials.
• Saves Landfill Space - When the materials that you recycle go into new products, they don't go into landfills or incinerators, so landfill space is conserved.
• Saves Money and Creates Jobs - The recycling process creates far more jobs than landfills or incinerators, and recycling can frequently be the least expensive waste management method for cities and towns.