6 Easy Ways To Teach Your Child To Go Green
Sustainability is a hot topic these days but getting a child “green excited” is often a lot more difficult than most parents expect. In this article, we explore 6 fun ways on to raise an environmentally-aware child who understands how small things everyday contribute to the bigger picture and influence the entire planet.
Turn Off Your Home’s Electricity for a day
Turning off your home’s electricity for a day is a fun and educational energy-saving project. Initially, children always miss the things that make life more fun, such as smartphones and video game consoles, but it takes just a day for them to realize just how much we as humans depend on electricity and why it would be so devastating to suddenly be without it.
Without a working TV, computer, or even smartphone, the entire family can come together and spend some quality time playing an educational board game such as Bioviva, which helps kids develop an interest in learning more about nature and our planet.
Read Books About Environment
There are many excellent books for children that explain Sustainability in a very creative way. For example, Uno’s Garden by Graeme Base is a best-seller for grades 2 to 5, and it focuses on the importance of striking a balance between development and conservation of nature.
Charlie and Lola: We are Extremely Very Good Recyclers by Bridget Hurst and Lauren Child is, as the name suggests, all about recycling, and Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth by Mary McKenna Siddals, Ashley Wolff teaches about the environment and climate change.
Spend Time Outdoors
Children love spending time outdoors and exploring the world and all its treasures, and you should see this as an opportunity to combine fun exploration with useful education to foster a deep appreciation of the natural world in your children.
If you live in a big city and going outdoors on a regular basis isn’t an option for you, why not clean up your neighborhood to demonstrate what a difference can the activity of a few people make? To make picking up trash more entertaining for your children, we recommend you equip them with a grabber, perhaps this one made by Vive.
Gamify Energy Conservation
Adults are aware of how much electric energy various electronic devices and appliances consume because energy consumption directly influences the number on the utility bill each month. But children lack this very effective form of feedback, which is why parents should create one for them instead.
When parents apply the elements of game playing, such as point scoring, to energy consumption, they incentivize children to pay attention to the energy rating label, teaching them early on about the difference between energy classes. For example, during summer, you can place a portable air conditioner or an evaporative air conditioner to your children’s room and connect it to an electricity usage monitor. Explain that some products combine more features into a single package, which increases their energy efficiency even further. You may use innovative products such as the Quilo 3in1 as an example because it combines an evaporative air cooler with a humidifier.
Conserve Water
Most kids don’t think twice about keeping the faucet running while brushing their teeth or playing with a hose in the yard. Talk to your kids about saving this valuable resource and reward them every time they take those extra steps like closing a running tap or shortening their shower time.
Recycle School Papers
We all have heaps of used school papers- worksheets, drawing files, notebooks to dispose almost every week. After going through the work with your kids and confirming that they no longer need to keep them, make a trip to the recycling bin and show them how to place the papers in the designated slot for paper.
Using these tips to help a child understand the significance of Sustainability can be life-changing for the better. Remember, children are our future, and habits they create now will affect them for the rest of their lives.