P.E.A.K.

The PEAK (P romoting E nvironmental A wareness in K ids) program is the result of a unique partnership between REI (Recreation Equipment, Inc.) and the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics. PEAK is based on the seven principles of Leave No Trace and is designed to educate children about the outdoors and responsible use of our shared public lands.
The program is available for kids of all ages and involves a plethera of activities for children. A short list of activites includes...
Discovering the Leave No Trace Principles - An introduction to the principles through demonstration of preparing for an outdoor trip; works great as a skit.

How Long Does it Last? - Find how long it really takes for common trash/recyclable to break down in nature and why it's important to Trash our Trash.

Watch Your Step - There are living organisms everything. Explore your world from an ant's level and find out why it's important to stick to trails.

Leave No Trace Draw - Many Leave No Trace decisions can be made along the trail. A version of a relay race, participants will decide whether they advance on the trail by answering Leave No Trace related quetions.

Step on It! - Why is it important to stick to trails? How do we know how to do this? Compete with your team to answer questions and learn how to Choose the Right Path when outdoors.

What Principle Am I? - Test your knowledge of the Leave No Trace principles by listening to clues and deciding What Principle Am I?

Leave No Trace Crime Scene - Have your youth become CSI investigators as they stumble upon a campsite leave no trace "crime scene."

Minimum Impact Match - Find out what different gear items will help you Leave No Trace when you are outdoors. Ask Yes/No questions to find out what gear you represent, then find your match!

Treks and Track's Great Adventure - Meet all the PEAK characters and the principles they represent as Trek and Track (a pair of boots) head out on an outdoor adventure.

Leave No Trace Relay - Set up a Leave No Trace obstacle course for your students, with stops and activities representing each Leave No Trace principle.


The program is based on 7 principles of Leave No Trace. Know Before You Go, Choose The Right Path, Trash Your Trash, Leave What You Find, Be Careful With Fire, Respect Wildlife, Be Kind To Other Visitors


http://www.lnt.org/programs/peak.php

The Solar Decathlon

The solar decathlon is a fun competition that is a great example for new ideas in sustainable solutions. The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon challenges 20 collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency. The event takes place every two years in Washington D.C..
When looking into this I found an amazing house, that has a great design and creative ideas. The House is called "The Watershed" and was designed by students at the University of Maryland. The house has two different sides and two seperate roofs. One roof is layered with solar panels to power the house with electricity. The other roof is topped with a butterfly garden, this is installed to collect rain water for everyday use. The house is projected to be able to sustain itself with electricity and water year round.
You may ask yourself, but there isn't enough rainwater to sustain it, and if so it may be acid rain. This is (to me) the coolest part of the house. The house is based on the ecosystem of Chesapeake Bay. Natural ecosystems have evolved over millions of years to sustainably harness energy, produce food, and recycle waste. Not to mention the house has a stream running through it!!!!
The house has a plethora of other features as well. Constructed wetlands, filtering stormwater and greywater for reuse.A green roof, retaining stormwater and minimizing the heat island effect. An optimally-sized photovoltaic array, harvesting enough energy from the sun to power WaterShed year round. Edible landscapes, supporting community-based agriculture. A liquid desiccant waterfall, providing high-efficiency humidity control in the form of an indoor water feature. A solar thermal array, supplying enough energy to provide all domestic hot-water, desiccant regeneration and supplemental space heating. Engineering systems, working in harmony, each acting to increase the effectiveness of the others. A time-tested structural system that is efficient, cost-effective and durable.

Here is a video of a digital walkthrough of the house. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZJe2CReFA8&feature=player_embedded

Reuse-A-Shoe

During Earth Week a few weeks ago, there was a shoe drive on campus. Fifty shoes were collected during the week.

The program comes from Nike Shoe, and since 1990 they have globally collected over 25,056,779 pairs of shoes. They have collected so many shoes that you could "create a chain of athletic shoes that goes all the way around the world more than five times"! By collecting all of these old shoes and putting them to use in other ways, there is a decrease in the amount of virgin rubber and other materials. The recycled shoes can be used to build new courts (such as tennis and basketball), tracks, fields, and playgrounds. Nike's next goal is to be able to recycle sports shoes, apparel, and equipment back into new Nike products.

Their US facility that recycles the shoes is located in Memphis, Tennessee. They use a "slice-and-grind" process which separates the shoe into three parts: rubber outsole, foam midsole, and fiber uppers. The three pieces are fed through grinders and then purified. The shoes rubber outsole is used in playground surfaces, track surfaces, interlocking gym flooring tiles, and even some new Nike products. In addition, the rubber is also used in trim for things like buttons and zipper pulls. The foam comes from the midsole of the shoe and is used as a cushion for outdoor basketball and tennis courts. The upper part of the shoe, the fiber, is used for cushioning pads for things like wood courts and indoor synthetic courts. These are all just examples of uses. There are many other uses that I have not covered.

So you may be asking yourself, how do I recycled these shoes so I can help make an impact? Well there are over 300 locations in the US that have bins available for drop offs. Here in Ohio, you can take your old shoes to Aurora, Jeffersonville, or Monroe. Or you can even organize a group shoe drive for your school, youth organization, or nonprofit organization. Any brand of athletic shoes can be recycled along with LIVESTRONG bracelets. They cannot accept cleats, dress shoes, shoes with metal, sandals, other type of wristbands, and flip-flops (however, check Old Navy out for their recycled flip-flop program).

For more information and a quick video, check out http://www.nikereuseashoe.com/

Your Environment

The EPA has online pages for kids of all ages. For the younger kids there is an online section for the kids. It is the "environmental kids club". This club contains activities and games that are all educational. There are games, wordsearches, funny videos, and quizes. All provide information about things such as recycling, water, and climate change. The club also provides links to science fair project ideas and an art room.

My personal favorite is the Lose Your Excuse game. It is slightly like some of the older video games. You must use stop the excuses that are being said by jumping on to different platforms and avoiding the bad guys who are wasting materials. There are 25 levels but I had a hard time making it past level 3 :(

The EPA offers a page for teens that has games, but more importantly it offers information about careers with the EPA and links to summer internships. In addition, there is a page for teachers that has great idea for presenting the topic to their students, examples to show, and fun activities as a hand on project.

So check out http://www.loseyourexcuse.gov/index.html#/energyhouse and try out your excuse stopping moves. Can you make it passed level 3?

Environmental Education for Kids

Environmental Education for Kids! (EEK!) is an organization dedicated to educating children in grades 4-8 about the environment. The site offers a variety of information. Animal information includes amphibians, birds, fish, insects, mammals, reptiles and endangered species. The site also discusses invasive species, seasonal animals and habitats. They offer a guide for children on spring plants showing children how to identify each species. There's even a page that teaches kids how to garden and what plants are best to start growing in what areas. The Earth is a big topic on the site. They discuss issues regarding the worlds water supply, air pollution and recycling. They offer "cool stuff" that features outdoor events and activities, a calendar with important environmental days, daily videos and rainy day games. It even gets into potential careers for young children who love science. There's also a teachers corner which has information and lesson plan ideas for teachers to discuss with their students.

I see this website being a useful tool for kids to get information about environmental issues. The website presents information in a way conducive for children to understand. I could see this website being part of an 'online search' where kids are given a worksheet and find the answers by looking around the website. It's very informative and complete with information. Having the information on a webpage also appeals to how people get their information. Society has begun the transition from a paper society to an electronic society. Where we once got all our information from the newspaper, most people now get information from the television or from the internet. Kids are now growing up with electronics all around them and they learn to use them from an early age. Using the internet as a media outlet is an effective way to get the attention of children and possibly spark their interest about environmental facts.

Buying Smart

Environmental sustainability seems like an overwhelming tasks, but it doesn't have to be! Future Friendly, a program through the consumer production company Procter & Gamble, was established to help consumers save energy, conserve water, and reduce waste. Their website lays out very easy and attainable ways to help create more sustainable consumerism and smarter shoppers. Future Friendly believes that "by taking small steps together with our consumers, we believe that we can create big benefits for the plant and ultimately improve lives every day, now and for generations to come".

Water is an important resource needed by all people, animals, and plants to survive. It is also been mentioned by many scientists that it will be the scarcest and hardest to get natural resource in the near future. Future Friendly suggests simple ways to reduce the amount of water we use in our homes each day. Their first suggestion is to only run the dishwasher when full. Another idea was to turn off the tap when washing your face, brushing your teeth, or shaving or switching off the shower while you lather. As a production company, Future Friendly suggests using Cascade Action packs with allow you to not pre-wash dishes which can save up to 2,600 gallons of water per year.

Reduction of the amount of energy used is another way Future Friendly is trying to help their consumers. They suggest not warming your car up and just driving as soon as you turn it on because modern engines do not need warming up. Another suggestion that I'm sure many of us can use is not plugging your cell phone in to charge at night because they only need a few hours to charge. Finally, they suggest that you give your computer a rest by turning it off at night to conserve energy The products they suggest to help reduce energy needs is Tide Coldwater and Duracell Rechargeable batteries. Tide Coldwater saves up to 80% of energy costs per washer load.

A final aim for Future Friendly is recycling waste at home. They suggest buying non-perishables in bulk to cut down on unnecessary packaging. Once you are finished with old furniture, they suggest donating it to a local furniture recyclers in order to save it from a landfill. Finally, when mowing your lawn, they suggest leaving the clippings on the grass to help fed the grass underneath. Future Friendly suggests PUR water filters to help save over $600 from buying water bottles and over 1,000 water bottles from going to a landfill.

Finally, the Future Friendly mission is to "reduce waste, water, and carbon dioxide through systematic conservation efforts when creating products...Since 2002 P&G operations have reduced, per unit of production, water consumption by 52 percent, energy usage by 48 percent, carbon dioxide emissions by 52 percent, and waste disposal by 53 percent.

Effective Science Communication

One of the most important aspects of environmental education is effective communication to the public. In the case of global warming and evolution, science has proven time and time again that these things are occurring and yet the public still does not believe it's true. What is the issue and where is the information being lost? In his book Don't be Such a Scientist, Randy Olson pin points the issue as being ineffective communication between scientists and the public. One of his biggest and most important points in the book in regards to environmental education and communicating science is how are scientists going to motivate people?

The first chapter of his book is titled "Don't be so Cerebral". In this chapter he challenges scientists and those who communicate science for a living to break out of their science training and become more public oriented. As scientists, we need to learn how to phase out confusing jargon and put complex topics into easier terms and concepts in order for our message to reach a greater audience. In order to do this he says that scientists need to get out of of the pattern of only using their heads and start using more of their heart, gut, and sex organs. By using their heart scientists can be sincere in their presentation of information, by using their gut scientists can relay information with humor an intuition, and finally through the use of sex appeal scientists will more effectively catch people's attention.

In the third chapter of his book, "Don't be Such a Poor Storyteller", Olson describes the importance of a storytelling. He describes an arousal and fulfill method where a storyteller should peak people's interest and then fulfill their desire to learn more exciting information. Without this effective story model, the message will not be effective. If people aren't aroused they will never get engaged with the message and if people aren't aroused they will walk away from a story unsatisfied. An effective story should also have a clear beginning, climax, and end. The three part story makes it easy for people to follow and since storytelling is how we communicate, it is important for scientists to also follow this model.

Likability is also important in portraying information. Olson directed a public service announcement for a non-profit called Shifting Baselines which supports awareness of disappearing diversity from our oceans. The PSA was a compilation of 20 comic celebrities in a bad ocean symphony with Jack Black as their director. Over 300 TV stations played the short clip for free and when asked why, they said it was because they liked it. This one example shows how important likability is for portraying science to the public.

Effective environmental education can be achieved through effective communication, good storytelling, and likability!

Check out one of Randy Olson's Videos!