Tag Archives: eco

Mar12

Earth Hour 2013: Join me and make your own pledge to STOP, START, CONTINUE

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Earth Hour 2013: Join me and make your own pledge to STOP, START, CONTINUE

What is Earth Hour?

Earth Hour is when everybody turns off their lights and their electronics to show awareness and concern for climate change and the environment. It is sort of like celebrating an environmental new year. This year Earth Hour is Saturday March 23 from 8:30 – 9:30 pm.

Cool Facts about The History of Earth Hour.

The WWF (World Wildlife Fund) founded Earth Hour which I think is totally awesome. The very first earth hour was held in 2007 in Sydney, Australia. Over 2000 people participated. The next year Earth Hour was participated in all around the world – 371 cities and towns in more than 35 countries. 36 million people turned their lights out that second year.

I am proud to say that Toronto was the first city in 2008 to sign up for Earth Hour. Wow! Since then, more than 15 million Canadians participate in Earth Hour every year. In 2012 more than 6950 cities and towns across 152 countries and territories took part and made a change. That is amazing! It’s amazing that you can see how many people are concerned about the environment and their future.

Take the Stop, Start and Continue Pledge. Make Earth Hour last all year.

I have a project, a challenge and a goal for Earth Hour 2013 and it needs you.

This year when you turn of the lights off, take my pledge by yourself or together with your family, and commit to your Eco-resoulutions!

When you power down for the hour, I want you to spend that time and think about what you can do, what you change – what you can stop, start and continue. Three things.

I always say that every little thing adds up to make a change and the more people and families that take this pledge and make their commitments, the more change there will be. The earth needs it. The earth needs us.

       To Do:

  1. Choose and print your Pledge Certificate below.
  2. Browse the list I made (below) to inspire you to choose your own personal commitment.
  3. Write down your commitments for each action – Stop, Start, Continue.
  4. Sign it with your name.
  5. Decorate and colour it. Make it special.
  6. Find somewhere in your home, office or classroom to display it so that you will always be reminded of the commitment you made.
  7. When your friends and family see it and ask you about it, tell them to come back to my website and take the pledge. It starts on Earth Hour, but it can be done anytime.
Choose, Download and Print your Pledge Certificate:
   Family Pledge (Flowers)
   Personal Pledge (Flowers)

Suggestions for what you can pledge Start, Stop and Continue:

STOP:

  1. Littering
  2. Using plastic water bottles
  3. Leaving lights on when you leave the room
  4. Using plastic bags
  5. Being silent about my concern for the environment
  6. Pretending that there is not a problem
  7. Using the washing machine during peak hours
  8. Throwing out what can be donated or reused (clothes, toys, books)
  9. Stop using disposable cups, plates and cutlery
  10. Stop using pesiticdes on my lawn and garden

START and CONTINUE:

  1. Using my voice
  2. Unplug electronics when not using them
  3. Use biodegradable products
  4. I will organize a cleanup in my neighbourhood
  5. Get involved with local causes
  6. Recycling everything I can
  7. I will pick up garbage whenever I see it
  8. Buy more local
  9. Use only eco-friendly cleaning supplies
  10. Learn more about the real problems facing the environment
  11. Grow a garden and try to plant some of my vegetables
  12. Compost
  13. Conserve water by getting a rain barrel
  14. Drive less, and walk more
  15. Get outside more
  16. Learn about animals that are being endangered
  17. Form an eco team with my friends
  18. Continue to read up about people that are making change
  19. Turn off the water when I’m brushing my teeth
  20. I will learn about how to dispose of waste safely

I would love to hear what you are pledging. I hope that you’ll leave some comments here and let me  and everyone else here know what you have committed to.

A big special thank you to my friend Lindsay Brewda of Everyday Grace for designing the Pledge Certificates for me.

Mar8

On International Women’s Day 2013: An Interview with my Role Model, Severn Cullis-Suzuki

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On International Women’s Day 2013: An Interview with my Role Model, Severn Cullis-Suzuki

Today is International Women’s Day and so it is a good day to share this interview that I did with a woman who is my role model – environmental activist, Severn Cullis-Suzuki.

On February 25th I went to Roy Thompson Hall to see David Suzuki and his daughter Severn-Cullis Suzuki speak. Before the show Severn came early to meet me and I had a chance to interview her. When I heard that I was going to get to talk with her,  I was so excited. When I met her I couldn’t believe I was meeting my role model! After I did the interview I ran into David Suzuki, Severn’s father and I had no idea I was going to meet him. Their talk was amazing, Severn told me that it was the first time that they were giving a talk together. Severn shared her life-story with the audience and David talked about what we can do about the environment and the problems it is facing.

Sep10

Eco-Dictionary – Defining Some Big and Important Eco Words

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Eco-Dictionary – Defining Some Big and Important Eco Words

This is me in one of my “eco happy places”. It’s a nature trail near my house. I ride my bike there and sometimes walk to and from school here.

When we talk about the environment people use a lot of big and new words that you might not know what they mean. You need to know what they mean so that you can really understand why they are so important. If you don’t know what a word means, ask someone – a teacher, your parent or look it up in a dictionary or on the internet. Sometimes if you don’t know what a word means and you just skip over it, you miss more than you think.

To help you understand the things I talk about here I made an eco-dictionary to define some of the words and terms I use when I talk about being eco.

Landfill:  A landfill is a big area where garbage is sent. Garbage dumped in landfills is run over by lots of heavy equipment to flatten it down as much as possible, then covered with soil. When landfills fill up, we need to find new places to put our garbage. We are running out of room to do this. This is why it is so important that we Reduce, Reuse and Recycle – we need to keep as much out of the landfills as possible so that they don’t fill up quickly and unnecessarily.

Reduce:  The first of the 3 Rs. Use less stuff so that less goes in the garbage and so that less new things have to be made in the first place. This is a big step in being eco.

Reuse:  The second of the 3 Rs. Use things over again for the same purpose (like a waterbottle or shopping bag) When you reuse, you also create less garbage.

Recycle:  The third of the 3 Rs. Make new things out of old things. You can use something for a new purpose, like an empty jar for a pencil holder. You can also donate things to people who need them.

Natural Resource:  Something that happens in nature that is used for fuel, food, energy or other beneficial service..

Non-Renewable resource:   A resource that there is a limited amount of in the environment like oil or coal. Once it’s used up it’s gone forever.

Renewable Resource:  A resource that you can make more of like trees because they can be planted and grow.

Foodweb:  Every living thing, including humans, is part of a foodweb. A foodweb is also called a foodchain and in simple words it’s what eats what.

Ecosystem:  A community of plants, animals and small organisms that live, feed, interact and reproduce in the same environment.

Biodiversity: A term used to describe the variety of life found on earth.

Eco-friendly:  Means to be kind, considerate and respectful to the earth. Treat the earth like you would treat a neighbour, family member or friend.

Conserve:  This means save. You are conserving (or saving) energy when you turn off the lights when you are not using them. You are saving power, resources and money when you take care to conserve.

Aug28

Tonight I Found My Role Model

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Tonight I Found My Role Model

Tonight my mom showed me this video that she saw on Facebook because she thought that I would relate to it – and I did! Tonight I found my role model. It was about a woman named Severn Cullis-Suzuki and how she made a difference in the world by learning and teaching about the environment. Here is what I like the most – she started doing this when she was 9 years old. I am 9 years old too!

We watched the video on Dove’s Facebook page and it is from a they are showing role models and want to make a difference in the lives of young girls like me. This is the video about Severn.

I think that Dove made a great choice to choose Severn. At the end of the video there are some questions to think about. My mom and I read the question and talked about it. This is the question:

Even as a child, Severn understood that her opinions mattered and that she could make a difference in the world. Self-esteem is strengthened through pursuing your passions. What are your passions and how can you make them a priority in your life?

This is what I think. When we read that question and put my name in there instead, it worked too. Just like Severn, I am passionate about the environment and I am using my blog to share what I am learning and I also to share my tips about easy things that we can all do to make the world a better place.  It feels good to write about why I care so much about eco things. What makes me feel even better is when I know I am making a difference because people comment and they tell me that they are using my tips and thinking about what they can do to be more eco-friendly too.

When Severn was 9 years old she started ECO – Enviromental Children’s Organization. ECO was a group of kids who were passionate about learning about the environment and sharing with other kids what they were discovering. When she was 12 years old, she and her 3 friends that founded ECO raised money themselves to travel from Canada to Brazil to “represent the voice of children” at the Earth Summit. Then she was invited to speak to the United Nations at a big meeting where there are leaders from so many countries from all over the world. These are some quotes of her speech there in 1992 that mean a lot to me:

“We are a group of 12 and 13 year olds trying to make a difference…I am fighting for my future. I am here to speak for all generations to come… I am here to speak for all the animals dying across this planet because they have nowhere else to go…animals and plants are going extict, vanishing forever…I am only a child and I don’t have all the solutions…and neither do you. If you do not know how to fix it, please stop breaking it.”

The video from this speech is here. From this speech she gave, she has been called “The Girl Who Silenced the World for 5 Minutes”.

She really is a role model for me! I am so happy to have found out about her. I am going to learn more about her, her family, (her dad is David Suzuki) and what they are doing to change the world.

I want to end this post with a special note to Severn. If you are reading this, you inspire me so much. You make me believe that I can make a difference in the world. Thank you.

Aug21

“Kid takes up eco-blogging” – that’s me on Global News!

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“Kid takes up eco-blogging” – that’s me on Global News!

Thank you Minna Rhee and Leslie Roberts from Global News for including me on your show to talk about my blog and my eco school supplies.

Aug20

Back To School Eco Style!

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Back To School Eco Style!

School starts in 2 weeks!

My Mom and I went to Staples to buy school supplies, eco-friendly, of course.  If you know me or have read my blog you know that I really care about the environment. At Staples I got a list of all of the things that I will need for Grade 4 and we got most of what we needed and most of it is eco-friendly.

We went up and down the aisles with our list looking for the most eco-friendly choices.  They had a lot of options that were exactly what I was looking for. It made me happy to see so many eco supplies.

If I could make a suggestion, I would put all of the eco supplies in one place so it would be easier to find them.

Here are my favourite eco-friendly school supplies and what I like about each of them:

There’s my eco-friendly picks for back to school. While we were at Staples we saw that they have an awesome recycling program. I’m going to save that information for my next post.

Are you finished your back to school shopping? Tell me about your favourite  stuff.

Jul19

Be More Eco-Friendly for $10 and 10 minutes

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Be More Eco-Friendly for $10 and 10 minutes

In the last 2 weeks we cut down the amount of garbage we collect in our bathrooms.

I was reading a booklet that the city made when the Green Bin program started. They made a little booklet to tell people what goes in the green bin  from every room. I realized that other than the kitchen we have the most garbage in the bathroom. There was so much stuff that we threw in the bathroom but was not garbage at all.

None of this is garbage:

  • Hair > Green Bin
  • Nail Clippings > Green Bin
  • Pet hair > Green Bin
  • Toothpicks > Green Bin
  • Cotton swabs/ Cotton balls > Green Bin
  • Tissue  > Green Bin
  • Paper > Blue Bin
  • Toothpaste/soap boxes >Blue Bin
  • Empty cans/bottles > Blue Bin
  • Toiletpaper rolls > Blue Bin

So me and my mom went to the Dollar Store to make special bins. First we to chose a big container and then were chose 3 smaller bins to fit the inside. We found 3 cereal containers that fit perfectly. The big box was $2, the smaller ones were $1.50 each. It was  less than $10 for the whole thing!  We then had to label the containers to know where we had to put things: Green Bin, Recycle and Garbage. We used plastic file-folder tabs to put them in. It looked amazing! And it works too!

This was really easy and it’s working. I can already see how much less we’re throwing in the garbage. I hope that you might try this too.

If you have other ideas like this, I’d love to hear about it!

 

 

Jul10

Getting ready for my first time at sleepover camp!

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Getting ready for my first time at sleepover camp!

I’m going to sleepover camp in about 2 weeks – 15 days from today to be exact. I’m really excited! My mom went to the same camp and now I’m going to that exact camp. I think my parents are sad that I’m going to be gone for a while.

On Sunday I got to go up to the camp for a special day trip! It’s about 3 and half hours away from home. It was a great day! It was so fun!

I have been at the camp before for an alumni weekend with my parents and I got to see the cabins – they had bunk beds. The cabins are painted really pretty. I hope I get to sleep at the top of the bunk bed because I have never slept at the top before. Something really cool is that when you sleep in a cabin you write your name and the year on the wall. The walls are all covered with names of campers from many years. I can’t wait to add my name to the walls of my cabin.

When I got on the bus to go to camp I sat beside a nice girl named Robyn. When we arrived at camp all the counselors were waving at us! When we got off the bus we were put us in two groups – blue and red. I was in group blue. We had to make up a cheer to show red how awesome we were! Our cheer was “We’re team blue and we’ll scare you, boo!” I loved that cheer so much!

Then the counsellors put us in 3 groups I was in group 2, we were going to do activities. The first activity group 2 did was dancing. That was fantastic! At camp there is dancing every Friday night so it was really cool to learn some of the dances. The second activity was sports. We played a really fun game and we also played soccer. I think I was great at that! After that activity we did art where we made a beautiful dream catcher. It takes your bad dreams away and replaces it with good ones. I loved making them!

After that we had lunch, we had stir fry! That was super good!

After lunch we went to the lake and we went tubing and swimming. We first went on a boat and went tubing and then we jumped in the lake. The water was so warm!

That’s when we had dinner. We had burritos! That was so good. We had to go home right after dinner. I knew that I was really going to miss camp – the people, swimming, the cheers. Everything. But I’m going to go back soon . I’ll be there again in 2 weeks and this time I’m going to stay there for 12 days.

I was really happy to learn about all of the different things that my camp is doing to be eco-friendly:

  • They don’t use paper towel in the bathrooms so there is less waste.
  • Every morning a group of campers clean up the beach.
  • They take pride in the beauty of camp and use what is available in their natural surroundings.
  • In arts and crafts the dream catcher we made was made from sticks.
  • Older campers are making a farm to grow fruits and vegetables.
  • After a meal table scraps are collected and given a local farmer to feed his pigs.
  • They buy as much food from local farmers as they can (which is a lot to feed about 200 people.)
  • They ask us to bring only biodegradable shampoo, conditioner and soap.
  • We are asked not to bring bottled water but use reusable water bottles.

I just can’t wait to go to camp for the first time! But I should tell you, I’m also really worried that I’ll feel homesick and miss my family. Can you give me some advice? If you have advice or suggestions for me, I would love to hear what worked for you or your kids.