Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Happy Holidays Earth Kids!

Happy Holidays to all Earth Scout Groups & Families

It has been an exciting year for the Earth Scouts with the launch of the new Earth Scouts Network. We have been working hard to help everyone orientate to the new network and all of the great features that help facilitate and support Earth Scouts everywhere.
This holiday season the Earth Scouts are invited to attend the online holiday debut of storyteller Jayátu - A Tale Feather of the Golden Eagle.

Jayátu has performed children's stories all over the country and SeThInk Media, one of the fiscal sponsors of this network, has launched an online web portal where families can now have access to the magic of Jayátu's stories.

This holiday story will be in video format on a private viewer and will go live on December 21st and be available for viewing and sharing through January 6th. Attendees will also be gifted an unpublished story 'A Tree in the Forest' audio download. You must sign up for this event to receive the link and gift.

The story is called 'The Big Jump' - you can click here to read a summary.

I remember when I was a child my grandpa used to tell stories at every Christmas gathering and as I grew up those stories took on new and deeper meanings. We hope this holiday season you can all spend time sharing your own stories with the young one's around you!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Thank You Louise!

We wanted to honor and thank Louise Gammons for her work and efforts as Earth Scouts coordinator!  Louise announced to us that she is having another baby and although she loves Earth Scouts and was very committed to the evolution and growth of the network she needs to take care of herself and her family during this time of family expansion!  Louise will rejoin us when the time is right for her and her family.  Congratulations Louise and we will be looking forward to your return.  

Saturday, May 8, 2010

World Hunger and the Right to Food


As the spring sun warms the earth each of us may be working with our children to plant our summer gardens. Beans, peas, carrots, corn, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, and fresh berries are but a few of the many fruits and vegetables we cultivate and enjoy in the summertime. The garden is a constant reminder of the abundance of life.

Bountiful summertime gardens also provide a perfect backdrop for our scouts to consider the problem of hunger. Hunger and poverty plague children and families around the globe. United Nation studies provide some quick facts about hunger that we should consider:

* World hunger organizations estimate that nearly 1 BILLION people around the world are chronically hungry.

* 25,000 children die every day of hunger or diseases resulting from hunger.

* Every six seconds a child dies because of hunger and related causes. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2004)

* 65 percent of the world’s hungry live in seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. (FAO, 2008)

* 36.2 million Americans, including 12.4 million children, are food insecure and at risk of hunger. (United States Department of Agriculture, 2007)

* 13 million children in the U.S. go to bed hungry. (Bread for the World, 2004)

* In the U.S. hunger and race are related. 22.4% of Black and 17.8% of Latino households experience food insecurity over the course of the year, as compared to 8.1% of White households. (Children's HealthWatch, formerly known as the Children’s Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program, 2007)

Earth Scouts facilitators have a variety of resources and curriculums that can help to organize Earth Scouts activities and service projects. First, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has put together a series of resource guides concerning world hunger.

The Right to Food: A Window on the World

This storybook is illustrated by young people for young people. Through a compilation of eight stories from around the globe, The Right to Food explains how it should be the right of every person to be free from hunger.

The Right To Food: A Window on the World Resource and Activity Guide

This activity guide helps teach young people that they are an important part of the solution to world hunger. By going through the activities, youth learn that every person deserves the right to be free from hunger. More importantly, they gain an understanding that every member of society, themselves included, must protect, defend and promote that right.

Another resource is the nonprofit organization Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger. This global education initiative was designed to encourage teachers and youth to "actively participate in creating a world free from hunger." They have created three lessons for three levels of education: primary, intermediate, and secondary. These lessons address the following questions:

  • What are hunger and malnutrition?

  • Who are the hungry?

  • Why is there hunger in the world?

  • What can we do to end world hunger?

One resource specifically targeted for middle school and high school youth is Finding Solutions to Hunger: Kids Can Make a Difference. This guide contains 25 lessons that can be used by our facilitators "to help students answer the difficult questions dealing with hunger and poverty. The book helps students move beyond negative feelings into constructive actions that show that they can make a difference in their community, country and world. Book includes fund-raising ideas, organizations to contact, and a listing of available videos and books for use with lessons."

Here are some fantastic books and articles for our scouts that address hunger:

Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen by DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan

This story tells of Uncle Willie and his nephew who work together to feed the hungry at a local soup kitchen.

Seedfolks by Paul Fleichmann

A vacant lot is transformed into an abundant garden. Thirteen different voices tell of how this garden affected their neighborhood.

The Adventurous Chef: Alexis Soyer by Ann Arnold

This is the story of Alexis Soyer, the chef who helped establish a soup kitchen during the potato famine in Ireland.


The City That Ended Hunger by Frances Moore Lappe

Learn how the city of Belo Horizonte in Brazil solved the hunger problem. Earth Scouts will be amazed at how people can eat without the need for government programs. Be sure to check out this corresponding Visual Learning lesson plan.

If you choose to address the issue of hunger this summer, please be sure to check out the Earth Scouts Read to Feed summer service project. This program, designed by Heifer International, empowers children and youth to solve the world hunger problem. This program also provides a variety of resources to help our facilitators teach about the themes of hunger, poverty, and sustainable development. This project will allow our scouts to work together as they make a difference in the world!

Monday, April 12, 2010

The Monk's Story: Using Storytelling to Teach About Sustainable Living


One of the ways we can teach and learn about sustainable living is through the power of storytelling. There are many reasons why storytelling is such a useful tool. Stories present contemporary problems against the backdrop of another time and place. Establishing a little distance from the 'here and now' allows us to get a little perspective about our actual problem. Stories can also illicit powerful emotional responses and encourage us to act on our desires to change. Lastly, stories create an atmosphere of open communication as engaged listeners turn to one another to discuss and share their reactions.

Using The Monk's Story for Earth Scouts

The following story is set in a mountain forest village in Sri Lanka. The local monk helped this village apply principles of sustainable living in order to encourage a more peaceful, harmonious, and joyful life for the members of the community.


1. Listen to The Monk's Story.

2. After your scouts listen to the story ask them to consider the following question:

What are the six principles of sustainable living highlighted by the monk?

Harmony with nature
Doing things in a more natural way. Recycling our resources. Living and working with our environment in a sustainable way.

Quality of life
Living selfishly just for what we can get leads to misery and conflict with other people and the environment. Living selflessly to give, help and serve, leads to happiness, fulfillment and harmony with everyone and everything around us.

Self reliance
Not being dependent on other people, especially experts. Taking our own decisions, being responsible for ourselves. Participating, and doing what we feel to be the right thing.

Variety and diversity
Welcoming differences in ideas, opinions, people, etc. Respecting and valuing other people and their ideas, even though they may be different from us and our ideas. Not wishing to make things the same or uniform.

Small is beautiful
Wherever possible, organising things on a small scale gives control to ordinary people. Small groups can often get things done quickly. Large organisations are usually difficult to change, even when people's needs change.

Co-operation and peace
All around the world we see competition and aggression. People feel that they must win at something to feel good. But people can share their skills and resources. By working together co-operatively with each other and our environment, we can lead a more peaceful and satisfying life.

3. Let your scouts identify how the villagers put these principles into actions.

4. Finally, ask your scouts the following question:

Are any of these six principles relevant to sustainable living in your society?

Have your scouts make a list of one thing you, your school or community could do to follow any of the six principles in 'The Monk's Story'.


Source: Adapted from Beddes, R. and Johnson C. (eds) (1988) Only One Earth: A Multimedia Education Pack, WWF-UK, Godalming, Surrey.

Source: Adapted from UNESCO (2002)
Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future

Source: Adapted from UNESCO storytelling module by John Fien, Bernard Cox and Margaret Calder using ideas, activities and material suggested by Annette Gough, Premila Kumar and John Fien in Learning for a Sustainable Environment (UNESCO - ACEID).


Thursday, April 8, 2010

Power of the Sun: Sustainable Energy Education from the Pembina Institute





One of the themes that Earth Day reminds us about is the need for sustainable energy development throughout the world. The Pembina Institute, a Canadian non-profit think tank, has made its mission the advancement of "sustainable energy solutions through innovative research, education, consultation, and advocacy." Most importantly the Pembina Institute strives for "a world in which our immediate and future needs are met in a manner that protects the earth's living systems; ensures clean air, land and water; prevents dangerous climate change, and provides for a safe and just global community."

The Pembina Institute's education programs are focused on teaching people around the world about the principles of sustainability. One activity I think our Earth Scouts will enjoy is learning about the power of solar energy. When you think about it, the sun has been emitting massive amounts of energy for billions of years. It just makes sense for us to harness this energy for everyday use.

The links that follow include an activity for our scouts to build their own solar oven. There is research information, instructions to construct the oven, and they've even included a recipe sheet!

Resources:

Background Information on Solar Heat
Solar Energy Q&A for Younger Kids
Solar Energy Q&A for older kids
Principles of a Solar Box Cooker Design
Solar Oven Construction Plans
Solar Oven Recipes

If you decide to take on the solar oven project be sure to tell us all about it!

Monday, April 5, 2010

The History of Earth Day


On April 22nd people across the globe will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, felt that US citizens needed an outlet to express their frustration with the environmental destruction going on around them. That first Earth Day event in 1970 inspired a grassroots coalition of 20 million people and thousands of local schools and communities to organize and demonstrate.

Who participated in the original Earth Day? This diverse coalition included middle class women, churches and religious groups, labor unions, scientists, students, and conservation groups. What brought these groups together to demand respect for nature? Senator Nelson argued that “"Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty. The objective is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human beings and all other living creatures."

Senator Nelson consistently argued that Earth Day and the demand for environmental responsibility should remain in the hands of the people. Our Earth Scouts have to remind global leaders of the importance of respect for nature and, by proxy, respect for humanity and for life. What can our Earth Scouts do to participate in Earth Day this year? Here’s a list of ideas thought up by kids:


Teaching Earth Friendliness
Fundraising for Wildlife
The Enchanted Forest
Trees in Honor of Earth
Invite Community Speakers
Spreading the Word
Recycling
Each One Teach One
Pledge to Mother Earth
Outdoor Classroom
Creating Wildlife Habitats
Jump Start Recycling


What will my Charlotte Earth Scouts group be doing? We’re going to set up a table at a local Earth Day festival to share the Earth Scouts program with the community. Our group will be wearing our Earth Scouts T-Shirts and my daughter will be sharing her Earth Day project. We’ll also be participating in the Global Youth Service Day by cleaning up trash from a local creek.

Whatever you choose to do have fun! Be sure to share your experiences on our network! I relied on the following two websites for the information in this post. Please be sure to check them out for more information!

Gaylord Nelson and Earth Day website
This site is an amazing resource for our children. It has lots of resources, documents, and information about the history of Earth Day.

All About Earth Day website
This is a great site directed towards teaching children about the history of Earth Day.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Celebrating 10 Years of the Earth Charter!



This Earth Scout Blog and Network is being launched in celebration of 10 years of the Earth Charter!