STEP #50
Teach Your Children
Our children—many of whom have a great chance to live until the end of this century—will inherit our warming world. The earlier our children understand and act on the issue of global warming, the better, but it requires careful consideration to best teach them about what can be a frightening and overwhelming issue.
Perhaps the best way to start—before trying to explain greenhouse gases and carbon footprints—is to ensure that your children have ample opportunity to understand and appreciate nature. This isn’t best done through a computer monitor or TV screen, but by giving your children the chance to see salmon relentlessly push upstream against a strong current, or a sparrow build its nest on the ledge outside the bedroom window. It has been said that we can’t save what we don’t love, and helping your children build bonds with nature is the best way to get them thinking about and acting against global warming.
Consider planting a vegetable garden, flower garden or even a few seeds in planters with your children. The whole concept of life and growth becomes real when kids see it happening before their eyes. Make it an event to go to the store and let them choose their seeds. While you plant together, talk to them about the role of plants and trees in nature, including how they reduce CO2 through photosynthesis.
Fast-growing crops like radishes, which are ready to eat in about 3 weeks, are great to start with. Children always love flowers too, so be sure to plant some pretty ones. Visiting community gardens and farms, such as Halloween pumpkin patches or strawberry-picking fields, will open their eyes to the world of possibilities planting seeds offers. They’ll love enjoying the fruits of the harvest, too!
Playing in natural environments will also raise kids’ appreciation for the outdoors. How about playing hide and seek in a (safe) natural setting? The sense of awe experienced, in a redwood forest, for example is inspiring, especially to children. Fishing in a lake you’ve hiked to, having a picnic in a meadow, swimming and river rafting are all healthy ways for the whole family to enjoy the great outdoors together.
These fun experiences can make children all the more aware of the value nature has in our lives, spurring them to overcome the challenges of keeping our earth healthy. And since the fight against global warming is about saving ourselves as well as the planet, any experience that parents can help create to build their child’s self-esteem and compassion for other living things will go a long way to giving that child the foundation for a happy and healthy life.
Author Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in theWoods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, chronicles the retreat of America’s youth from meaningful experiences in nature. He argues that the breaking of this bond with nature spawns an array of immediate and longterm problems for the mental and physical health of children and for the world they will inherit. He suggests a “No Child Left Inside” mindset among our families, organizations, and governments.
Despite our youth’s growing concern about the environment, most don’t understand how natural systems work, or how human actions and decisions are connected to pollution, global warming, and other environmental impacts. The good news is that any daily activity can be a teachable moment for learning these dynamics and connections: driving to school, eating a burger, throwing away a wrapper, watching a plane leave a contrail overhead, turning on a light switch or a computer.
Of course, make sure that you are knowledgeable about these concepts and connections so that you can explain them well. Setting a positive example through your own decisions and actions as a parent goes a long, long way too. Richard Louv points out that modern media and even environmental groups might be doing more to discourage rather than empower children on global warming and other environmental issues of importance. He posits that messages children receive often have “it’s too late” or “it’s too big to solve” overtones and that this breeds hopelessness, indifference, and inaction among our youth.
While it’s true that global warming is cause for alarm, we have to find ways to instill hope without candy-coating a real castor oil of a problem. A parent or teacher might point to the successes mentioned in the introduction of this book, such as how the world’s cooperation on the phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) has reversed the growth of the stratosphere’s gaping ozone hole. These examples can show children that it is possible to solve enormous problems, through policy as well as personal action. Even though this is a “grown up” topic, if explained the right way, even kindergarteners can understand it.
Since today’s youth will be on computers, watching movies and TV, and hopefully reading a lot of books as well, we can be sure that their consumption of media helps to grow their knowledge and interest in the natural world and the plight of the human community. While watching an IMAX movie of polar bears or penguins isn’t the same as bundling up and seeing them firsthand, these widely accessible media do provide ways for children to learn to love and understand places and critters they may never see in person.
Thankfully, there is no shortage of resources for us and our children to learn about ecology, human-nature interaction, and global warming. One solid interactive Internet resource is the EPA’s Climate Change site for children: www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids. Check out the site, but remember to head to the woods with your child after you log off!
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