Halloween is here and everyone is psyched, this year it can be fun and environmentally conscious. Here are some tips to go green this Halloween!
On Halloween
1. For a green Halloween costume, get your costume from the thrift store or trade last year’s costumes with a friend.
2. Walk instead of drive! If the neighborhood you are trick-or-treating in is close enough to your house ask your parents to walk you there instead of drive.
3. Use a cloth or recyclable/reusable bag for your candy instead of plastic.
4. If your handing out candy at your house ask your parents to buy organic chocolates and lollipops that can usually be found at your local grocery store or Whole Foods.
5. Buy candy that uses less packaging! Less plastic=better for the environment.
6. Keep Halloween clean! Make sure to hang on to all your wrappers and trash until you get home and can throw them out!
After Halloween
1. Save your costumes! You can swap with friends or siblings, or even make it into something else next year!
2. Get rid of all trash properly, recycle and reuse what you can.
3. Compost your jack-o-lanterns! (or donate them to a farm to feed the pigs!)
Remember these tips and have fun on your spooky, silly, green Halloween!
Halloween is just a few days away and there’s a way to make this Halloween the best ever! What could be better than crazy costumes, tons of candy and trick-or-treating…? Doing all those things and staying safe! Halloween is the time of ghosts and monsters, not to mention walking around in the dark, so here are a few tips to stay safe and have fun!
1. Stay with an adult! Even though you might think your parents are boring, you’ll be surprised how fun they get on Halloween. Ask them to dress up with you and tell you stories about Halloween when they were a kid.
2. Carry a flashlight or a couple glow sticks. It’s dark and everyone is wearing strange costumes, make sure you have a flashlight in your candy bag.
3. Make sure your costume fits! If its too big or your mask covers your eyes, ask for some help! When your costume doesn’t fit, its more likely you could trip and fall.
4. Only knock on doors of houses that have all the lights on! If the house is dark it means they don’t have any candy and shouldn’t be bothered.
5. Wear comfy shoes! You are most likely going to be walking a lot, so wear good walking shoes!
Keep these things in mind and have a great Halloween!
Great Seneca Creek Elementary School is a lot like any other school, with one major difference: it was the first school in Maryland to be certified eco-friendly. Right now a lot of schools around the country are taking steps towards being eco-friendly schools.
It was said best by fifth grader Eddie Graves, “It doesn’t use as much water.” They have waterless urinals, motion activated faucets, cabinets made of wheat board and bathroom stalls made from recycled bottles.
The U.S. Green Building Council has certified or is considering certification for more than 1000 schools across the country.
So find out what you can do to get your school green! Visit the USGBC website today and tell your teachers and principals that you’re ready to help!
Our favorite 11-year-old, James Brooks, in cooperation with the Canadian Ape Alliance, has started a project called 1000 Classrooms. James hopes to get 1000 western classrooms to donate $3 each to buy a dozen eggs from the widows of Park Rangers killed protecting the apes. The eggs will be given to the children at the Kahuzi-Biega Environmental School in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Because of this purchase, the widows earn an income, the children and teachers are given nutritious food and the apes are safer because there is less demand for food!
The Eggs for Kids Program makes sure every kid and every teacher gets an egg per day!
So how can you help? Any classroom can get involved from preschool to University. All you have to do is talk to your teachers and ask them to visit www.1000classrooms.org.
Each and every kid can make a big difference with only a small donation!
Check out our latest video about our Clean Up the Beach event! Spread the word!
Bonobo Kids and I’m Lucy: A Day in the Life of a Young Bonoboare working hard to teach kids and their families about bonobo apes AND about the important connection between bonobos and people. Actually, that connection exists between all things and beings - plants, animals, people. We are all connected and our daily actions have a real effect on our world. Be part of the solution!
Every year, scientists work for the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an organization that works on many projects to conserve all types of animals, ecosystem and plant species, to put together a new Red List. The Red List is an up-to-date list of this year’s threatened species.
For 2008, scientists from Conservation International, another organization that works to take care of important species, landscapes and seascapes on Earth, are working in Barcelona to discover new and old endangered or threatened species.
This year’s list will detail more than 45,000 endangered species! That’s a lot. Even though this doesn’t talk about ALL species on Earth, it gives us an idea about our planet’s health in general! For example the Malayan Tapir has recently been added to the list, their population has declined mainly because of climate change, which is a direct result of global warming.
Things like this growing list of endangered species are just another reason to start paying more attention to global warming and how its affecting everyone and every thing!
Remember just making small changes in our own daily life makes a huge difference! You are a powerful planet protector. Here are a few easy things to do:
Walk or ride your bike to school.
Get a reusable water bottle and stop using plastic water bottles.
Change all of your lightbulbs to CFL (compact flourescents).
Recycle!
Eat organic.
Turn lights off when you aren’t using them.
Unplug lights, cell phone chargers, printers and TVs when they aren’t in use.
Bonobos have been thought to only hunt small rodents, squirrels and forest antelopes. But a recent study published by Martin Surbeck and Gottfried Hohmann in the Oct. 14th issue of Current Biology, says something else. Researchers reported the first evidence of wild bonobos hunting and eating the young of other primate species - not apes, but small monkeys.
The interesting thing about the bonobo’s hunting pattern is that they, unlike chimpanzees, include the females in the hunting process. For chimps hunting is about male dominance and bonding. The involvement of the females in the hunt may reflect the bonobo’s social patterns.
The recent study is making people really stop, think and look deeper because bonobos have been featured as being peaceful and non-violent and now because of this study, some people are assuming this is no longer true.
With all of these new discoveries, we were eager to talk to our partner, Sally Jewell Coxe, the President of the Bonobo Conservation Initiative. Here’s what she has to say on the matter:
“It is a fascinating and important discovery, which certainly merits further investigation—to learn if this is a cultural, site-specific phenomenon, as it has never been observed at other study sites—and to fully understand its context and implications. It is interesting to note, as Surbeck and Hohmann’s paper does, that at one site, bonobos have been observed to engage in mutual grooming with colobus monkeys and at another location, when bonobos opportunistically caught monkeys, they did not eat them.
However, what I find particularly curious is the fact that the media seems to be using this new evidence to go on a feeding frenzy of its own! If one judged by the surge of headlines hitting the press, you’d think that bonobos were violent warmongers, which is certainly not the case.
For example, the Reuters headline, “Hippie apes make war as well as love,” gives a false impression. Hunting does not constitute war-making nor does predation constitute aggression. Bonobos do not wage “war” against other bonobo groups, in contrast to the deadly, premeditated attacks witnessed between chimpanzee groups fighting over territory. To make matters worse, the lead sentence of the Reuters article falsely states that “bonobos actually hunt and eat other great apes.” Monkeys are NOT apes! Nor do bonobos even share the same habitat with any of the other great ape species. It’s a shame that a respected news outlet such as Reuters failed to get the most basic facts straight.
While this notable discovery does increase our knowledge about bonobo behavior, it does not negate the fact that bonobos maintain a markedly cooperative and peaceful society.”
Thanks to the Ideal Bite, we now know a bar of soap is best! Instead of using a bottle of liquid soap try a bar; they’re more eco-friendly and cheaper.
They use less packaging. Packaging waste makes up about 31% of waste sent to landfills; a bar of soap will make that less.
They cost less.
Liquid soap builds up in your pipes and eventually clogs your drain!
A bar of soap, even if more than one person uses it, gets you just as clean as liquid soap.
Some people just use a bar of soap to wash their hair, which believe it or not is actually better for your hair than shampoo!
Some bars of soap we recommend are down below. We like them because they’re organic, biodegradable and NOT tested on animals (and smell really good)
The presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain will answer kids’ questions as part of a television special called “Kids Pick the President” at 9 p.m. Sunday on Nickelodeon.
Ten kids between the ages of 10 and 15 will ask their own questions to the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. Some questions are serious, talking about issues of war, education, the economy and the environment. But other questions are more fun, “Were you ever picked last for a sport?” and “What was your favorite Halloween costume?” will be a blast.
After you watch the special, you can cast an online vote for president at http://www.nick.com/kpp.
Okay, so we know that you can’t actually vote in this November’s presidential election, but you can still make a difference!
We’re going to make a little assumption here. We assume that you are reading this blog and visiting our website because you care about the environment, right? Well, as you may have guessed, we care too. And that’s why we’re voting for Barack Obama.
He truly cares about our planet, and his plans to help the environment when he becomes President of the United States say this loud and clear!
Just some of the things Senator Obama will do as president:
Promote energy alternatives like solar and wind power.
Work on recycling programs.
Make all products safe from heavy metals like lead and mercury.
Protect animals.
Support children’s rights to a safe and healthy planet.
Safeguard the natural wonders of our country: The Great Lakes, the national parks, the forests, the oceans…
So, how can you make a difference when you can’t vote? Here are some ways (and please send us more ideas if you have them!)
Do your own research: read articles about the candidates and watch the debates!
Tell people old enough to vote who you would vote for and why.
Write a letter about who you would vote for and why to your local newspaper.
Explain to people why the environment and policies to protect it are so important.
Wear shirts or buttons with your candidates name or face clearly displayed.
Volunteer at a local campaign office or event - even if it’s just by bringing those hardworking volunteers some cookies!
Always speak up for what you believe. Your voice and your passion can and will make a difference!
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