This Week's Hopping Links, Earth Day Edition!

Welcome to our round-up of all the best links we found this week! For Earth Day, here's a list to get you and your kids started on some ecological adventures, and one that might help you as a parent when it comes to talking about the tougher environmental issues. 

• Kaboose has some fun craft and activity ideas for earth day. They also have quizzes, coloring pages and project guides and a green checklist.  
• Here's a cool online magazine run by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources called Eek! (Environmental Education for Kids) It's aimed at ages 4 - 8.

• "TUNZA" is a word in Kiswahili (the common language of most East African countries) that means to "treat with care". It is also the name of the UN Environmental Program's Children and Youth program. Their website has many great resources and fascinating articles - many contributed by kids and teenagers themselves. 

• For your budding zoologists, the University of Michegan's Museum of Zoology has a website with information on thousands of species, compiled by university students and professional biologists. Lots of photos to look at, and some creature pages even have videos and sounds. 

• Want more animal antics? the National Zoo in Washington D.C. has live cams for many of it's animals, including the pandas, orangutans, and octopus. 

• If your kids want to get involved with helping endangered species, there is a great campaign run by Earth Rangers and the Nature Conservancy of Canada called Bring Back the Wild. Kids can set up their own fundraising campaign to protect animals like the Grizzly Bear, Wolverine, Peregrine Falcon or Jefferson Salamander. 

• Want to learn how to compost? California's Integated Waste Managemetn Board set up a website with flash cartoons featuring Vermi the Worm and his various composting adventures. There are also a lot of great resources - sans animated worms - to help you get started on your own composting journey. 

• Finally, talking to your kids about environmental devastation can seem daunting. Especially in the wake of the Gulf Oil Spill, many kids had questions about what happened and why. The National Wildlife Federation had some helpful tips after the spill last year about how to talk to your kids, with age appropriate suggestions.  

This Week's Hopping Links!

Here's this week's round-up of Hopping Links! These are cool, helpful and interesting links we've found this week while burrowing around the internet.

Since Monday kicks off Screen-Free Week, we thought we would share a handful of great articles we found.

• The Campaign for a Commerical Free Childhood, the sponsors of Screen-Free Week, have a great fact sheet on children and time spent in front of the screen. It downloads as a pdf, if you click on this link.

• Here's a 2010 article from the New York Times about wired kids. Lots of experts weighing in, with their advice and experience. Read all about it here.

• Another article from the Times, this one about the movement to restore children's play. We quoted it in our blog entry about Screen-Free Week, but definitely worth another read!

• We've had a mild winter in Colorado, but still those colder days can lead to more time in front of the TV. This article from The Boston Globe has some great suggestions on how to ween your kids way from the screen this spring. 

• Here's some awesome suggestions from a father on how to arrange your home to encourage more play time and less screen time. Lots of great ideas here!

• Finally, although you may not go to the lengths journalist Susan Maushart went to unplug her family - which included three teenagers - from technology for six months, her story is inspiring, and hilariously told to boot. You can soon pick up a copy of her book, The Winter of our Disconnect, at Grandrabbit's, but in the meantime, check out this intriguing preview here. 

 

Happy reading and happy Screen-Free Week!