Now I am interviewing my 8 year old daughter Tess on the environment. (Either my kids have horrible memories or we need to do a better job!)
What is paper made from?Trees. No bark.
Why do we need to save water?
So that we can drink it. So we can live.
Why do we TRY to be vegetarian?1. Because they're not treating the animals well.
What do we recycle?1. Cans
2. Bottles
3. Soda bottles
4. Containers
5. Plastic plates
6. Newspaper
7. Paper
8. Envelopes
9. Magazines
Why do we recycle these things?
So that the factory can reuse them to use again. So that we don't cut down lots of trees. If we throw stuff away, it will go in the landfill. If we have lots of landfills it will be really stinky and we won't have a place to live.
If they don't go in the landfills, where do they go?They go in a big factory and they get melted, they shape them and put them back together and reuse them. Paper gets shredded and they melt it and put it in the thing that makes it flat and they paint it white and then we use it again.
Why do we ask you to turn off the lights?So that we don't waste electricity and so that your bill doesn't get bigger.
What is electricity made from?Water, air and sunlight.
What if I told you electricity was created by burning coal or oil or gas? Why then should we save electricity?So that gas doesn't pollute the air.
What is gas made from?
Fossils.
What happens when we run out of fossils?Then we will have no more gas and we can't drive cars anymore. Unless we make electric cars or cars that run on batteries.
Name some things we do that are good for the environment.1. We could walk to school instead of drive (her brother helped her with this one).
2. We have a wood burning stove instead of a heater.
3. We save water.
4. We recycle paper.
5. We pick up trash.
I am interviewing my 6 year old son Tucker on the environment.What is paper made from?
Thread
Why do we need to save water?
So we can drink it. So the fish won't die because if they don't have water then they can't breath and they'll die.
Why do we TRY to be vegetarian?
1. Because people are eating too much animals with meat and then we won't have any animals like chickens and pig liver and fish or shark.
2. My mother had a mom that ate meat and she got the liver out of the pig and she cut the head off of the pig and she put the head in my mom's room.
What do we recycle?
1. Cans
2. Bottles
3. Wine glasses
4. Milk cartons
5. Egg cartons
6. Soda bottles
7. Boxes
8. Paper
Why do we recycle these things?
So they don't have to go in the landfills.
If they don't go in the landfills, where do they go?
You use them over again. They make them into the things that they were except new. Like a soda bottle made into another soda bottle.
Why do we ask you to turn off the lights?
Or else we will spend too much electricity and my mom and dad will have to pay their bills more.
What is electricity made from?
No idea.
What if I told you electricity was created by burning coal or oil or gas? Why then should we save electricity?
Because we wouldn't waste lots of coal and oil and gas.
What is gas made from?
It's made from fossils.
What happens when we run out of fossils?
We don't have any more gas. But there is not that many fossils left because the dinosaurs are almost gone. Wait, all of them are gone.
Name some things we do that are good for the environment.
1. Pick up trash.
2. Save electricity.
3. If you are close to your school, don't drive there or else you will waste fossils. So just walk there.
4. We don't eat meat (most of the time).
The environment is the water, land, trees and air. (This was a reminder...)
There is styrofoam on the ground and that kills the ozone layer.
POSTED BY Wendy Richardson co-author of Nerdy Books AT 8:31 PM 3 comments
I calculated that Americans could provide health insurance for over a half a million kids if we just unplugged. According to the New York Times, Americans spend 1 billion dollars a year to power turned off TVs and VCRs, cell phone and iPod chargers, answering machines and computers in standby mode. Many of these items use only half as much energy as they "suck out of the wall".I did the "half a million kids" calculation myself. I remembered seeing this pretty frightening web site (www.costofwar.com) that had a running total of the money we are spending to finance the war in Iraq compared to the cost of pre-school, kids' healthcare, education, college scholarships, public housing, world hunger, the AIDS epidemic and world immunization. According to that Web site, it costs around $1700/year to insure one kid. (Who's their insurance provider? Walmart?) I divided one billion by 1700 and got 588,235. That's a lot of kids!
According to the article, our TVs, VCRs and other electronic devices remain in standby mode drawing 1,000 kilowatt hours a year per household - enough energy to light a 100-watt lightbulb 24/7. The one statistic I wish I hadn't read: Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.
POSTED BY Wendy Richardson co-author of Nerdy Books AT 4:55 PM 1 comments