Earth Day is celebrated every year on 22nd April. It aims to raise awareness in masses and inspire action towards protecting environment and need for conservation. This year’s theme for Earth Day is Restore our Earth.
The day is meant to recognize earth and its ecosystems as humanity’s common home and the need to protect the same to improve people’s livelihoods, fight climate change and the resulting collapse of biodiversity. If the past 1 year has taught us anything, we need to recognize that the time to act is now and the days of lip-service are over.
This year, I decided to involve my kids as well in simple but sustained efforts to protect and restore our earth by implementing small lifestyle changes. In the run-up to the Earth day we came up with some fun ways to do it.
7 ways to celebrate Earth Day in our daily life
- Super Electro Unplugger
Both kids were tasked with turning off the switches, unplugging instruments when not in use and keeping an eye on electricity conservation. This resulted in them learning about the importance of electricity conservation and some fun time pass over the summer vacation.
2. Identify- Segregate- Donate
After the schools closed for summer vacation, I got both my kids to raid their cupboards and segregate things and clothes on the basis of reusable, and discard categories. Clothes and toys that were reusable were packed in boxes for donation or sharing with their cousins. Clothes that were in the discard category were packed to be discarded off consciously.
3. Reuse school stationary
We did a similar exercise with school stationary. Blank pages from the last years books were torn and binded to create new home books for revision. Similarly the books that were used were handed over the scrap dealer. Textbooks were shared with those looking for second-hand books. Pencils, rubbers, pens and other stationary were labeled and stored in relevant boxes for reuse.
4. Caring for a plant
Both kids were given take-away containers to plant a seed and watch it grow. Project restore our earth can begin with one plant each house, isn’t it? The younger one was super thrilled when the green shoots were visible. Now he is patiently waiting for it to grow and give a flower. He planted the marigold. Husband has been tending to our balcony garden since Covid lockdown and the garden has been blooming well in his care. Both kids take turn in helping their dad in the garden. They also wait excitedly for the little sun birds that visit our garden.
5. Use their creativity
Both kids have been asked to come up with something creative to commemorate the Earth Day with Restore our Earth theme. Diva has been busy ideating and creating a poster while the scientist has been tinkering with his stuff to come up with some model. The idea has supercharged their brains and it is fantastic to see them work on their ideas.
6. Set up a Reading Club
Diva has recently started reading more and she and her friends came up with this great idea of starting a book exchange club. They have gone a step ahead and created a Whatsapp group to share their books. Each kid shares the book images of what they have and others request for relevant books. They meet at a common time and exchange their books every week. I loved this idea and will be implementing soon in my network as well.
7. Make paper
Create recycled paper. Another fun way to use the old used school notebook pages is by making recycled paper of it. Simple steps to create recycled paper are
- Cut the paper into tiny pieces
- Soak it in water
- Add some natural color
- Make a pulp of it by giving it a quick spin in the blender.
- Put the pulp in a sieve and let the water drain.
- Keep the residue in the sieve and let it dry for 24 hours.
Simple initiatives like these will get children involved and help them become climate warriors. Restore our Earth, is not just a theme but it should be a mantra that each one should follow. We need to make a lot of changes at the grass root level to achieve significant results and it can start from our homes.
How do you plan to celebrate the Earth Day? Share your ideas in comments below.
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Following these tips is a hopeful indicator that kids who are taught these are likely to grow up as conscientious adults.
Yes, I hope so too. We desperately need to teach inclusiveness and possibility of better life while caring for the environment.
When the first ever Earth Day was celebrated in Mumbai ( around 30 years ago), I took my children walking up to Malabar Hill where there was supposed to be an event. We were the only ones there…..Since then I have my doubts about how effective these events are because the world is still getting polluted. If we stop using plastic, we use more paper ( cut more trees) or cloth . So there’s no getting away from polluting the earth unless we all just die out.
That’s a radical solution, but I guess reusing and recycling paper, plastic, cloth etc. will put less pressure on our existing resources.
Small steps can make our kids understand the importance of saving our Earth. I liked the idea of reading club and making paper. My including kids in this process will give them a better understanding.
I remember we had this book exchange club, and we used to enjoy that a lot. I am so happy to read these practical tips to teach kids the value of our mother EARTH.
I loved all your tips, why one, kids must adopt all of them and us parents must push them in the right direction.
Earth day should be celebrated every day; its a reminder that we should do our bit , however small it is, to protect our planet
Surprisingly on earth day, while my daughter was not aware about it, but she woke up early that day and got a cucumber seeds from the kitchen and planted them in an empty pot. She later told me in the noon and I was so proud of her. I include my kids in watering and planting seeds so she has a liking for it.
It was wonderful reading all the small tips and activities you suggested to do with kids. I and Sure they would surely enjoy and understand the meaning behind it
These indeed are great ideas and initiatives to teach the importance of earth day. From childhood, we need to make kids aware of these things. Even My daughter is quite close to nature due to my gardening hobby and she also enjoys it nowadays.
Earth day should be celebrate everyday . It will remind us the responsibility of ours towards our mother earth.
Reusing stationery and making kids do that will surely imbibe the habit of recycling of things , that will in turn help to save the Earth.
Why celebrate Earth day only once a year we should celebrate each day as Earth day and teach our children the importance of Mother Earth.