Enter the Kids Count for Earthday Haiku Contest!

What does Earth Day mean to you? Can you write a poem about it? If so, you could win a prize and your writing might be published in Sketchbook, a Journal for Eastern and Western Short Forms.

The international Kids Count for Earthday Haiku Contest 2010 is looking for haiku poetry (17 syllables or less) written by children and young adults ages 7 - 20 years. Poems must be written by individuals; each person can only enter once. There is no fee to enter. The theme of this year's contest is "What Earth Day means to you".

According to the Kids Count for Earthday website,

"The contest is designed to combine the love of earth with the sheer simple fun of writing Japanese haiku in English!"

The deadline for this haiku contest is May 23rd (postmark of May 22nd). For more details about where to send your entry and what information to include, please visit Kids Count for Earthday 5-7-5 Haiku Contest 2010.

Good luck!

[Update 10/9/10: Read the winning entries here!]

Happy Earth Day!

Little Brother. Earth. 2010.
Paper plate and tissue paper. From the private collection of Mama Joules.

Today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day! Little Brother, Princess, and I went to a local park with friends. Little Brother climbed on the playground equipment with his buddy. Princess ate wood chips. I snapped this picture of an incoming spring storm front.



How are you planning to celebrate your Earth Day?


Photo credits: Mama Joules

40th Anniversary of Earth Day!

April 22, 2010 is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. According to Earth Day Network, Earth Day is "the largest secular holiday in the world, now celebrated by more than one billion people."


How are you going to celebrate? You could sign a petition, pledge to take better care of the earth, find a green event (like the big Earth Day Climate Rally planned for April 25th on the National Mall in Washington, DC), or read up about some of the biggest environmental issues facing our planet.

But participating in Earth Day doesn't require a big fancy activity. You can start small. Get out your rubber gloves, find a trash bag, and organize a cleanup of your favorite park, walking trail, or even your own backyard. Every little bit helps.

I thank you and the earth thanks you. Happy Earth Day!


Photo credit: Lauren "Lolly" Weinhold, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Happy Earth Day!

Today is the 39th birthday of Earth Day. (That sounded really old until I realized that I'm even older ... eek!)

** Visit my friends Corey and Lynn and discover new ways to Celebrate Green!

** Drop by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and play games at the Environmental Kids Club. You can also download an Environmental Tips Widget like the one at the top of this post.

**If you're in the U.S., check out Earth 911 to find a recycling center near you, enjoy National Park Week, and join the Great American Cleanup™ now through May 31st.

Photo credit: greenbk, through a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

** And you can always go outside and hug a tree!

Photo credit: National Park Service

Disneynature's earth

Recently, I received a promotional flyer for earth, a new movie from Disneynature that opens on Earth Day (April 22). The movie will follow the stories of three families -- polar bears, African elephants, and humpback whales -- and the scenery that goes with them.

Before the movie opens, you can download the free earth Educator's Guide and earth Activity Guide by choosing the "for educators" button from the earth page. You can also play an online game or download new wallpaper. [Please note: all of these pages are extremely graphic-intensive.]

I have mixed feelings about Disney with regard to the environment. Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park, for example, attempts to show you "wild" nature through a highly manipulated and controlled environmental setting. On one hand, what you see is too sanitized and pretty (no blood-stained carcasses of dead prey on display, for example); on the other hand, it's too nature-intense (like using heated rocks to lure animals to certain locations so that visitors will be sure to see them). Don't get me wrong, I like Disney theme parks. But this one blurs the line between reality and fantasy in a way that rubs me wrong.

I also think Disney is missing the mark here -- and some of their target audience -- by not presenting low-bandwidth movie information.

Still, I am cautiously optimistic that earth will live up to its hype. The Disneynature website claims that if you buy a ticket to see earth during opening week, Disney will plant a tree in your honor. And their mailer was printed on recycled paper. :)

Photo credits: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Happy Birthday, Dr. Suess!

"I am the Lorax ... I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues ..." from The Lorax by Dr. Suess

Today would have been Dr. Suess' 105th birthday. As a child, I loved hearing my father read Suess' rhyming tales. My favorite book was Horton Hears a Who with its now-famous refrain: "A person's a person, no matter how small."

But as an adult, I'm partial to The Lorax, Suess' "shortish ... oldish ... brownish ... and mossy" environmentalist. He speaks for the trees and the birds and fish under his care. The Lorax does his best to convince the Once-ler to think about how his manufacturing plant is harming the environment before it's too late.

At the time Suess published The Lorax in 1971, the environmental movement was in its infancy in the United States. People were just beginning to think about saving the planet on a global level. The first Earth Day was held in 1970; the Environmental Protection Agency was formed that same year.

Today, almost 40 years later, the Lorax has many friends standing behind him. On Earth Day 2008, Conservation International, Dr. Suess Enterprises, and Random House started The Lorax Project™ to raise environmental awareness. Visit the website to take a pledge to help the Lorax (to do things like recycling). Read about 20 ways that you can help reduce your environmental impact and learn what students across the world are doing to save the planet. You can also read about endangered species like Golden Lion Tamarins, Red Pandas, and Lemurs.