August - Around the House

Living on planet earth is great don’t you think? Earth gives us all the resources and things we need to live and be happy. It gives us water to drink, food to eat, air to breath, and wildlife to watch and enjoy.

Now what if all of these great things were affected terribly and became unusable? What if the air was so dirty and smelt so bad that you couldn’t breathe?  Or what if the oceans and streams all of a sudden turned to slimy muddy goop and it was unhealthy to drink? If those things did happen then not only will we not be able to survive but every living thing on earth couldn’t either.

The problem is that everything we make: plastic water bottles, light bulbs, and even the electricity to power them, is made with things that aren’t reusable and things that pollute our wonderful planet. We need to start making things out of materials that we can reuse or can be put back into the earth safely without hurting the wildlife or precious resources.

Lucky the world has noticed this problem and is trying its best to produce things that are better for our planet. We are making things out of natural material that can be broken down easily when put back into the earth.

You can help too!! There are simple things that you can do around the house to make sure that our rivers stay clean and that our wildlife stays happy. Here is a list of easy adjustments you can do in your own home:

- Buy an inexpensive reusable water bottle. It takes lots of energy and power to make plastic water bottles. The factories burn lots of coal, which produces nasty smoke that gets put into the air. It also takes gasoline to make the plastic, which is not reusable and cannot be broken down naturally.

-Wash laundry in cold water instead of hot. Your cloths will still be clean even if the water you washed them in isn’t hot. It takes lots of electricity to heat  water, more than it should take in this situation. Even using warm water instead of hot can reduce the use of electricity which again takes burning coal to make which put smoke into the air.

-Put only cold food into the fridge.  By letting food cool before storing it, the fridge doesn’t have to work as hard to cool the food down.  This uses less energy!

- Unplug things you’re not using.  Is your phone or laptop fully charged?  Unplug it!  Even chargers left in plugs use a small bit of energy. 

- Moving?  Building a new house?  Think: windows!  More windows means more natural light, which means you’ll have your lights on much less often.  

Activity:

Have a contest to see which member of your house, class, or group is the most aware about conservation! Each player starts with 5 points. Every time a player is caught leaving the lights on or not recycling, take away a point. Come up with a prize for the last player standing!