Adopt a tree Choose a tree near your home, preferably one that stands out from other trees nearby and that the children see every day or that you can easily visit once a week, in a local park for example. Find out what kind of tree it is: see www.treesforcities.org for details of the 34 native tree species in the UK. If possible, each child could choose a tree of a different species. On your first visit to your tree, make a tree study based on the senses and note the results in a "tree log". Spend 3 to 5 minutes watching the tree/s and writing down all the living things the children can see on or around the tree: birds, squirrels, insects, worms and so on. Listen in silence for 3 to 5 minutes and write down all the sounds you can hear from the tree/s or creatures (distinguish from environmental noise). Feel the bark of the tree/s, describe how it feels and make a rubbing with paper and wax crayon on a small (quarter of A4) piece of paper. Make a rubbing of leaves, or draw outlines of them. Do this directly on to the pages of the "tree log" stuck on. Smell the bark, the leaves and any flowers and describe the smells and describe the smells in a tree log. Measure the circumference of the trunk/s with a tape measure. Note the results. On later visits Take a picture of the tree/s every week with a digital camera, display them at home and notice the changes. If you do this over a year, the results are spectacular. Be a bird helper See the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds website for advice on what to feed the wild birds in your adopted tree, back garden or neighbourhood and how to help them nest.
Create your own compost If you don't have a garden or any other outside space, there may still be a corner where you can keep a compost bin and turn your familys fruit and vegetable peelings, raw fruit and vegetable peel and scraps, pet bedding and even the hair from your hairbrush into compost. This can be used in a window box or container garden or donated to a communal garden or anyone you know who has an allotment. Try this game to find out what can be added to compost and what makes your compost work better at http://compost4fun.recyclenow.com/.
www.recyclenow.com includes links to good deals on compost bins in association with local councils. It'll also tell you where you can go for help from regional composting advisers.
Compost Awareness Week is on May 4-10 2008. Even if you've missed it, there's lots of advice on the website http://www.compostawarenessweek.org.uk/
Enjoy no-waste picnics and day trips (see below) Waste less energy The UK is committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions to slow down the rate of climate change. Saving energy at home is an important part of this and the Energy Saving Trust has advice at www.energysavingtrust.co.uk What your family can do: See how much you can save on your fuel bills in a quarter and agree on something you would all like to do with part of the extra money. Take turns being an Energy Monitor, checking that lights have been turned off and unplugging electronics when not in use or when finished recharging (agree in advance what should be switched off, so that you don't switch off the freezer by mistake). Wait until it starts getting chilly, then do a draught survey and make some fun draught excluders for your doors - there is a free tutorial here
The Energy Saving Trust can advise on longer-term energy-saving measures such as insulating your loft or wall cavities, or using a more energy-efficent boiler. The US holds Earth Day every April which includes everyone living without electricity for one hour after dark. Try this and see what you can still manage to do without electricity. Waste less food Wrap (Waste and Resources Action Programme) www.wrap.org.uk is about to launch a report (on May 8, 2008) which says that 6.7 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year and that most of this waste could be avoided. Love Food Hate Waste, a campaign linked to WRAP, has its own website www.lovefoodhatewaste.com which is mostly aimed at people doing the family food shop but has ideas for children to want to help. Learn to cook - or learn to cook better Make things you enjoy eating. Hate speckly bananas, soft fruit and milk that's gone off? www.lovefoodhatewaste.com has a great leftovers section with ideas for using them up in smoothies, cakes and pancakes. If you cook for the family, think of a meal you can make from what's already in your cupboard. To make sure youve cooked enough rice or pasta for everyone, see www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/perfect_portions which tells you how to cook the right amount of anything. Waste fewer resources and recycle more Add up everything your family throws out in a week (include all the packaging that you take to school or work with packed lunches). Use the Recycle More website's Waste Diary to work out what you can do to cut down. If you cook for the family, think of a meal you can make from what's already in your cupboard. Appoint monitors for the areas where you think your family could cut down on rubbish or recyle more. Give everyone a job. For example: The Bag Monitor makes sure theres plenty of spare bags and reminds everyone to take one when they leave the house, so theres no need to take new plastic bags from shops. The Paper and Envelope Monitor collects all the envelopes that come in the post for recycling and stick blank labels on them so they're ready to use again, plus keep a pile of scrap paper ready for making notes or lists. The Newspaper Monitor makes sure people have read their papers and taken out anything they want to keep before recycling them. More fun, less waste Can you go on a picnic or out for the day without producing any rubbish? No more arguments about whose turn it is to pick it up! Think about the food and drinks you'd like to take with you, and then see if you can take the same food with less packaging. It's hard to buy food without packaging once youre out. Your sandwiches or cakes can travel in a resealable lunchbox rather than being pre-wrapped and you can take water or squash in a long-life plastic or metal flask or bottle rather than a carton of juice with a straw or a can of fizzy drink. If you want to run a stall to raise at a school or playgroup fair or other community event, make it a Recycle More stall: sell food and drink without generating extra packaging, and if you do use paper plates or cups have a recycling bin next to the stall. What can you do with your family's rubbish? Some you can turn into compost (see above). You can use it for something else straight away: Is there anything youre using at home now that used to be used for something else? You can recycle it so that it can be made into something else. For example: Glass jars and bottles come back as glasses/jugs. When you recycle glass you need to sort it into colours so they wont all come out the same. Rubber tyres can be turned into sandals. Drinks cartons that contain metal foil can be turned into bags. Steel food cans can be turned into toys (lots of beautiful ones made in Africa). Plastic cups can be turned into pens. Plastic bottles can be turned into fleece material. How much you can recycle and how easy it will be depends on where you live. You will need to check what your local council is able to recycle and whether some of it can be collected from your house. You will need to rinse out glasses, cans and plastic containers and check whether the council also needs them to be squashed flat. You might be able to find this out at a library or community centre as well near your local public recycling bins (these are often in supermarket car parks or near community centres). www.recycling-guide.org.uk and www.recycle-more.co.uk cover all the basics about recycling: what can be recycled, how recycling works and how to find out about the recycling facilities where you live. These sites are aimed at adults but include activities for children. There is advice on both sites about materials that are relatively easy to recycle (paper, glass and aluminium), some that are more complicated (plastics) and other things your family might have lying around including batteries that you cant recharge, old printer cartridges, unwanted CDs and old mobile phones. All these things can be recycled but it might not be possible to do it near where you live. See www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/Packaging.htm for more details about packaging materials and how easy they are to recycle. For example, drinks cartons are usually a mixture of plastic, paper and metal and have to be sent to Fife in Scotland for recycling unless your council is able to collect them: more details at www.drinkscartons.com
See www.recoup.org/shop/product_documents/109.pdf for a handy list of plastics and how you can identify them. Cash for Cans Find out if there is a Cash for Cans centre near you. This project donates money to grow fruit trees in Malawi in exchange for aluminium cans (some centres also accept aluminium foil) Finally, make a song and dance about recycling Make musical instruments from recycled material: there are instructions for shakers made from empty plastic bottles and pots and an elastic-band guitar at www.recycling-guide.org.uk/activities.html and www.recycle-more.co.uk/images/static/schools/pdf/sp_musical.pdf The Recycle More website has instructions for making puppets from plastic bottles www.recycle-more.co.uk/images/static/schools/pdf/sp_plastic_bottle.pdf
Make up a song for the puppets to perform accompanied by guitar and shakers.