Karen Walstra
Apr 20, 20212 min
Updated: Feb 2, 2023
Earth Day is celebrated on the 22nd of April. It was first celebrated in 1970 as an international protest. It was founded by Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson. And yet, we still need to protest and create an awareness of looking after our planet, even more so today! What are you doing in your home and community for Earth Day
Earth Day in 2021 (https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2021/) is having three days of awareness and activities.
There are many ways in which we can each contribute to restoring our earth, by implementing ideas in our schools and homes. I’d like to share some thoughts and ideas.
Recycling and reducing waste
As a family, school or community do you recycle your waste?
Buy products that use less packaging?
What about “plogging”: Picking up litter while jogging?
Explore MyWaste South Africa to find recycling companies, and information about recycling and reusing.
Add climate to the curriculum
Encourage your learners to solve the challenges of tomorrow. Earth Day website has a range of learning activities, including games.
https://www.earthday.org/restore-our-earth-climate-education-week-toolkit/
Earth Day topic quizzes https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-quizzes/
If we look at the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals all of them link to preserving our planet in one form or another, and they could be highlighted on Earth Day.
GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being
GOAL 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
GOAL 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal
We should be continually developing school and family projects and initiatives around these goals.
Help protect pollinators
https://www.earthday.org/bee-conservation-toolkit/
Download the Global Earth Challenge™ citizen science app today
https://globalearthchallenge.earthday.org/
Right now the Global Earth Challenge is trying to understand how insect populations like bees are changing.
Collect data on bees today, or support research on air quality, plastics, and food security anytime!
Global Earth Challenge™ is the app assisting and encouraging the world’s largest citizen science effort, available on Android and iOS devices. Get learners, parents and whole school communities involved. Download the app and share your findings.
The Global Earth Challenge lets you gather important scientific data near you. Become actively involved!
Regenerative Agriculture
Promote regenerative agriculture in your school gardens and your home gardens.
Use crop rotation when planting.
Crop rotation for animal farming - moving them to different areas allowing land to restore and regenerate.
Best of all grow food between your flower beds creating real ecosystems.
If farms explored diverse, multi-crop growing within the natural land. Not destroying the natural land for farming.
Stimulation of soil micro-biology, not using fertilisers, chemicals, nor continuous grazing.
Explore RegenAg SA - the Regenerative Agriculture Association of South Africa https://www.regenagsa.org.za/
Other websites to explore:
https://science.nasa.gov/earth-day-2021
https://www.seedyourfuture.org/plantflix
https://charleseisenstein.org/books/
Create an awareness among your learners and your children.
We all need to do something quickly to help save our Earth.
Promote Earth Day everyday!
Teaching about Earth Day, assisting in promoting and helps us achieve some of the UNSDG.