On April 22, 1970, millions took to the streets across the U.S. to raise their voice against smoke-spewing factories, giant gas guzzlers and ever-growing landfills. Now, 44 years after the first Earth Day, most youth do know the reasons behind “green” practices.
Unfortunately, we have not graduated beyond recycling. Green living has not become a core part of our daily routine.
While offering environmental units and courses at schools is a step forward, solely hearing facts has failed to make much impact. Environmental threats sound just like all other threats (such as health) that we keep hearing but ignoring. Ten years are an eternity to youth, so long-term environmental threats fail to convince kids to change their habits.
Let’s accept that we are driven more by convenience rather than conscience. Schools tell us to walk to school, but we ignore those pleas.
After all, walking takes time, our bags are heavy, the weather is too hot or too cold, and we want to sleep every extra second. We are also creative at persuading our parents to spend 20 minutes to drive us to school.
Old habits may be hard to change, but if we can inject fun and excitement, maybe students will adopt green habits.
I’m a senior at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, and since the seventh grade, I’ve been organizing fun activities to encourage green habits.
In my middle school, we organized Walk-One-Week (WOW) to encourage students to walk and win free movie tickets, smoothies and games. Attracted by prizes and competition, many students joined the walk.
After a successful run, other Cupertino schools joined WOW, local businesses sponsored prizes, and the city of Cupertino sponsored awards and brochures. Soon enough, we had the entire city walking.
Last November, we organized WOW at Monta Vista High School to raise $3,000 for the clubs. This spring, 15 elementary, middle and high schools from four cities are once again walking with WOW.
I wanted to go beyond walking and encourage other fun environmental habits as well. Our Sow-and-Grow booth has been a permanent crowd-puller at various festivals over the last six years, including at this month’s Cupertino Earth Day.
Kids would line up to spin the giant green wheel, answer trivia questions and take home hundreds of free plants and seeds. Hopefully, this activity would green our Earth one seed at a time.
Kids love being in the fantasy world of dragons, mermaids and goblins, and if we were to frame the environment’s challenges in their language and world, they would be open to adopting green habits. On Earth Day, I released a free “Enchanted Earth” mobile app that uses stories and images from mythical folklore to encourage green habits.
Instead of reciting facts about the gallons of water wasted in a bathtub, I show how goblins and fairies live with a four-minute shower. Instead of just Santa bringing gifts, I created Recycling Reindeer that recycle bottles and cans for their summer jobs.
To help schools organize green activities, a free Green Youth Kit of instructions, templates and brochure samples is available at ourgreengal axy.org.
If we can instill green habits in our youth using fun ways, they would become green citizens for the rest of their lives. With their help, Earth may indeed get its fairy-tale ending.
Shailee Samar is a senior at Monta Vista High School and the founder of ourgreengalaxy.org. Shailee can be reached at shailee@ourgreengalaxy.org.