Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Change The World Wednesday

The paper towel challenge seemed like it would be easy enough but ... it was hard. Those sneaky little towels are everywhere. We don't buy them or use them at home but ... once we left the house the challenge became difficult. There are paper towels in public restrooms, in restaurants ... even in gas stations. It was a real eye-opener. If you felt that you didn't do well on that challenge ... don't worry ... I can guarantee that it'll come up again.

This week's challenge was suggested by our bloggy friend SquirrelQueen at The Road to Here. It's a little different from our usual challenges in that the activity, while specific in a broad sense, leaves the "particulars" up to you. Are you intrigued? Read on ... you'll see what I mean:

This week we're all about kids ... after all, they will take the "green torch" and become environmental "Olympians". So this week, your challenge is to do an environmentally friendly activity with your kids (or grand kids or neighbor kids or nieces/nephews, cousins, etc). Get them involved. Need some ideas? Here you go:


Awesome Activities

Kaboose

Kids Links (Teaching Green)

Gardening for Kids


Once you've done the activity, we want to know about it ... so come back here and leave a comment (either with the activity or a link to a post) ... or if they did something fun during the summer like an Eco-Camp, tell us about that. We'd also be interested in little Eco-Stars ... kids who have taken it upon themselves to come up with green living ideas.

Or ...

If you don't have any accessible kids to have "green" fun with, then write an article about ways that we can get kids involved in an Eco-friendly lifestyle.

So what do you think? Can you do it?

Don't forget: Commit to trying the challenge and you'll get into the Honor Society. Write a post (and be sure to let me know you did) and that post will be Stumbled and Tweeted. And ... I just happen to know that the Honor Society gets linked to in a number of other places (blogcatalog groups and other blogs). So ... lots of blog ranking and visibility opportunities available ... all while doing something good for the earth. Click HERE for the rules, all challenges and some tips & ideas.

A lot of people tried out last week's challenge. Whether they were totally successful or had a little trouble, they are members of our Honor Society in my book. Take a look:

Mrs. Green at Change The World Wednesday - Week 2 and at Update: Giving Up Disposable Paper Kitchen Towels

Sinclair at Change The World Wednesday on Nature With Me and at Change The World Wednesday on Sharing Our Gifts (And by the way, Sinclair has a great humanitarian project going on Sharing Our Gifts ... be sure to check it out!)

Sober White Women at Thoughts of a Sober White Women

Harmony at Doing More With Less

Tracy at Strawberry Hedgehog

Green Gal at A nagging question and a new addition to our garage

Argentum Vulgaris at Tomus Arcanum

Karissa at Prissy Green

Kate at The Holdfast Seeker

Marcy at Do we really need to use paper towels

The River Wanders at The River Wanders

TC at Live Smart

Kate at Om Shanti Handcrafts

Amy at No Paper Towels for a Week

Michele at By Your Side

Andy & Mel at Another Change the World Challenge from our friend small

EcoGrrl at The EcoGrrl Network

Inge' at A New Quicker Picker Upper - a "booger bear"!

Rewinn at the hilarious Hankerin' for an Alternative to Paper Towels

I hope that you will take a minute to visit some of Honor Society ... there are so many good articles ... it's really worth the time.

That's it for this week!

WE'RE CHANGING THE WORLD ... ONE CHALLENGE AT A TIME!


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17 comments :

  1. not a lot of interactions with kids and none in my family, can you believe it? if i include my dog....? i think kid activities ultimately come down to what a lot of us folks did when we were younger...oops, a lot of us meaning those of a certain age who didnt have video games and cable television and wii and such...my family was all about hiking, camping, backpacking, etc - in the city or in the country or at the beach, it was all about finding a little piece of nature. when we wanted something to do as kids, we investigated the neighborhood, biked miles to the river, climbed trees, went to camp fire camp and learned about the world around us. kids are creative and dont need a wii to get exercise, dont need a computer to learn to read, dont need cable tv to be entertained. my one interaction with a kid recently was with my friends 4 year old, and as soon as she turned on the tv he was listless and inaccessible to anything besides the sound of the cartoon voice. scary. at least when i was that age i was watching donny and marie and dancing around the living room with my sister, ha!

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  2. My post is up today on all three blogs.
    http://sharingourgifts.blogspot.com
    http://naturewithme.blogspot.com
    http://hoardersunite.blogspot.com

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  3. I think this is going to be an exciting challenge and I look forward to seeing everyone's ideas. I just posted the first part of my story on the Kids' Garden Club at

    http://squirrelqueen2.blogspot.com/2009/09/kids-garden-club-part-i.html

    Have fun,
    Judy aka SquirrelQueen
    The Road to Here

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  4. I bought a box of painters white rags 12.50 some were pretty large but most were the size of a paper towels. After cutting up the big pieces there was 35 pieces total all T shirt quality white rags. In all since I have had them they have replaced the paper towels well I have washed them three times still they are just fine. but found I ran out quickly so i retired several dingy T shirts to the stack an went an bought another box which are quite handy for storage with the hole in the top it fits neatly on the shelf after drying I just restuff them back into the box. Now my count is up over a 125 rags including thecut up T shirts which then after they are all dirty become a wash load in themselves . but in figuring I was useing 3 rolls a week of paper towels . I still haven't broken my wife from using paper towels but at least cutting back on at least 10 rolls a month is quite a savings after all the rags should last for quite some time hopefully a year or better .

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  5. Hey SF. I have been getting pretty jammed up lately so keeping things short. Here is my post. Check out Moolah Maker. It is a very cool way to get kids involved in sustainability action. Change The World
    TTYL

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  6. I've put up my post this morning about some of the things my DD already does. She is wonderful really and I'm so proud of her.

    This week instead of directing an activity, I'm going to be more mindful of the things she does and learn from her:

    http://littlegreenblog.com/family-and-food/green-parenting/change-the-world-wednesday-week-3/

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  7. Kids to interact with are few and far between. My favorite little person (my niece) lives quite a few hours away. I will TRY and find someone, but honestly, this week may be a bit hard. :-(

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  8. SF, my CTWW post is up on Tomus Arcanum:
    http://tomusarcanum.blogspot.com/

    AV

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  9. Yet another fabulous challenge! Please check out my new post on www.earthpromise.com/blog as I have many child eco-freindly activities to share with all!

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  10. I have posted The Kids' Garden Club, Part II
    http://squirrelqueen2.blogspot.com/2009/09/kids-garden-club-part-ii.html

    These are the kids that inspired me to suggest this week's challenge. I hope everyone will take time to check it out. I would really like to know if you have something like this in your area.
    The Road to Here

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  11. I believe that parents don't let their kids go outside enough anymore. By spending most of my childhood playing in the woods behind my house I learned to love everything and every creature in it.

    My post is up:
    http://holdfastseeker.blogspot.com/2009/09/raising-kids-to-be-stewards-of-earth-go.html

    excellent challenge! And an easy one for us too...

    -kate

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  12. http://ann-mythoughtsandphotos.blogspot.com/2009/09/save-world-children-and-gardening.html

    Here's my site. gardening with my son is great. He thinks his own potatoes taste better than the store bought ones.

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  13. Hehehe, I forgot to link the post here... (AV blushes)

    ALl fixed.

    AV

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  14. Very fun! My post is up: http://whatacard.blogspot.com/2009/09/zero-waste-lunches.html

    My kids and I made zero-waste lunches for school!

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  15. I don't have ready access to kids of a suitable age. So I've slated two book reviews, _Gaia Girls 1: Enter the Earth_ and _Gaia Girls 2: Way of Water_ for Sunday and Monday. These novels are aimed at young readers and explore how the Earth needs our help.

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  16. I also don't have access to kids at the moment but we had a family education when we tried to find out how much electricity various Games machines used - a big eye opener!The Wii wasn't too bad but the Playstation 3 uses much more than the Playstation 2 and the Xbox is also a big user. My son's have now made sure that they turn it off when not in use.

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  17. Quite by chance, this weekend I met a teacher who reminded me of the importance and practicality of encouraging kids, parents and schools to reuse, swap, donate and thriftstore books and other school supplies, to save green in both the monetary and planetary sense: "Thank You, Ms Cathy"

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