How Are You Celebrating World Oceans Day?

World Oceans Day is officially June 8th every year!  It’s an opportunity to celebrate our oceans and our connection to the worlds oceans.  As teens who love going green, we are excited to support and celebrate this holiday!

Here are a few organizations to know about and other important facts about World Oceans Day!

–How it got started

-Join Mission Blue on Facebook!  This group is igniting public education and support for the worlds oceans.

-Find out what Jacques Cousteau would do about the oceans today in this article.

-Don’t support captive dolphin and marine mammal shows, choose other options and find out 9 other ways you can honor World Ocean Day in this list provided by change.org. 

-Watch the movie the COVE!  A real life, action thriller about the dangers dolphins and other marine animals face from being captured.

-Find out how sharing a Blue Marble with someone can help save the ocean!

Girls With Dreams Loves Earth Day

Happy Earth Day everyone!  What will you be doing?  Planting trees?  Attending a community festival?  Driving less?  Unplugging your cellphone chargers? 

We thought we’d share some of our favorite blog posts and videos we’ve shared on going green!  So, here they are:

Does Your School Recycle?

Top Ways to Save for Earth Day

Girls With Dreams TV shares tips for going green

The Girls With Dreams Going Green Category (read all of the “green” blog posts)

We’d love to hear how you’ll be spending Earth Day and how you “go green” everyday!

 

Does Your School Recycle?

In honor of Earth Day week, I wanted to bring up one of my pet peeves….schools that don’t recycle.

Many schools do an amazing job of recycling their paper, plastics, aluminum, etc…  They have recycling bins in the classrooms and the cafeterias.  I truly appreciate all of the efforts the adminstrators, teachers, and students have gone through to recycle at their school. 

What I don’t get is why there are still some schools who aren’t recycling.  It saddens me when I walk into a cafeteria and there are no recycling bins to be found.  It is a shame thousands of plastic bottles and aluminum cans are being thrown into the trash every week.  Worse yet, when this happens, schools sending a message to students that it’s okay not to recycle.

So, here’s my plea.  If you attend a school that is only partially recycling, or not recycling at all, would you consider speaking up about this?  Many kids have brought recycling programs to their schools, and you can too.

Here are a few ways to try it: 

• Find a group of friends that feels the same way you do and who want to see recycling at your school.
• Find out if other local schools are recycling.
• Get the facts.  Find out how much money the school could save or get back by recycling.  Find out an estimate of how many pounds of paper, aluminum, or plastic is being thrown out.
• Talk to a teacher for suggestions on steps to take at your school (for example, it probably will make sense to start with the principal, but if you have a teacher on board, that is great too).
• Set a meeting with your principal and see what you can make happen!
• Be persistent.  If you get a  no, find out what would need to change to get a yes.
• Keep your friends at Girls With Dreams posted on your success!  Let us know what you accomplished!

It’s Easy Being Green!

Every plug you take out of the wall and every piece of paper you recycle, eventually adds up to millions and millions across the globe. These tiny acts of “going green” may not seem like much, but we all owe it to ourselves and Mother Earth to keep going green and looking for more and more ways to do so. Hear teens share more ideas about how they are going green and simple ways you can too!

Earth Day is Every Day

I love that so many people are talking about going green! We have so far to go as a nation and a global community, but every little bit helps and it’s encouraging to see more people talking about going green and actually doing it. Earth Day is this Wednesday and in honor of it, I wanted to share a few fun tips.

1. Have fun with Earth Day, but remember, Earth Day is every day! How green can you be? Try to think of things you can do every day to be green. Start by doing something small and let it build! Before you know it, it will be like second nature.
2. Do you unplug your cell phone, ipod, and computer plugs when they are not charging? Even if you unplug your device, but don’t unplug at the wall, you’re wasting precious energy.
3. Have you seen the new Facebook application started by Gengreenlife? It’s so cool!
4. Walk or carpool! Try to see how you can walk or bike more. If driving is an option, can you carpool?
5. Join the celebration! St. Louis is having a huge Earth Day party at Forest Park. What’s your town up to? Just Google earth day and your town to get more great ideas.
6. Watch our No plastic video.
7. Tell us your green ideas and we’ll post them! You can email us at info@girlswithdreams.com

Adopt an Animal and Help Save the Planet.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of taking my two kids to the St. Louis Science Center to see the Omnimax shark movie because one of my kids has always loved sharks. I understand if you’re terrified of them, but they’re really more misunderstood than bad. Humans actually kill millions of sharks every year. This statistic, in addition to climate changes, might eventually lead to the distinction of sharks, which would wreak havoc on our ecosystem! Sharks are one of the oldest animals around, dating back to before the dinosaurs. 

As a result of my recent adventures, I did a little more research online and found a few quick ideas for how you might reach out to help our planet. The World Wildlife Organization has a ton of resources about our planet, environment, animals and so much more! They also have this cool adoption program, where you can adopt an animal with its own certificate for as little as $25. For $50 you can even get the plush animal to match. You can choose from about 90 animals! Wouldn’t that be a cool gift?

Besides checking out these sites, we can all do our part by looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint every day. Even simple things like turning off lights, unplugging your cell phone charger, car pooling, and recycling, all help make a big difference.

So, what’s your favorite animal?

Are You Seeing Green?

I met thousands of amazing women when I was in Dallas this July. Two of them started GenGreenLife.com, founder and CEO Charisse and and marketing and content manager Crystal. The goal of the site is to be the most comprehensive listing for local resources that support environmental awareness. There are more than 25,000 listing to help you live a green lifestyle! Everyone can benefit from it, whether you’ve already gone green or you’ve been wondering what all the green buzz is about. I’ve already joined the site and found a lot of local resources. After you check out www.gengreen.org, make sure to give Charisse and Crystal feedback!

Missouri’s Going Green!

The other day I was driving along Highway 94 (in St. Charles) and noticed they were building some kind of apartment complex. On one of the buildings, there was a huge banner that said “Missouri’s First Green Development.”

I’d like to hear all of your thoughts about this development. What makes a development “green?” Would you choose to live in a place that has made the effort to go “green?”

I’ve seen celebs wear “Go Green” t-shirts and many stores are selling or encouraging the use of reusable bags instead of paper or plastic. What’s your take on this? Have you done anything to support this new cause

For more information, visit www.thinkgreen.com or greenopolis.com.

Frog Fiasco

I was at the Zoo this weekend with my kids. We were checking out this new exhibit about frogs and amphibians and I was shocked at what I read! I took a small excerpt from the Web site to share with you:

“Did you know that The Earth is now facing the largest mass destruction of a species since the disappearance of the dinosaur? After thriving for over 360 million years, one third to one half of the world’s approximately 6,000 known amphibian species could go extinct in our lifetime.”

Think about that. One third to one half of the population might become extinct in our lifetime! That’s not acceptable. Once again, it stresses the importance of our responsibility to take care of our earth. This exhibit reminded me of that fact again. The site listed 4 main causes of this population loss:

1. Habitat loss
2. Climate change
3. Pollution and pesticides
4. Introduced species and diseases

I’m not a scientist, but I know that we play a huge role in most of the causes for their extinction! It reminded me of the importance of doing my part to reduce greenhouse gases (which impact climate change) and to reduce pollution and pesticides I might be introducing into the environment.

I would love to hear your ideas and hear about what you see happening in your schools and communities! We need to work together on this!

What are Your Earth Day Plans?

I wanted to share a few ideas that I’ve been thinking about in conjunction with Earth Day. One of my little boys loves sharks! He’s just a toddler and can tell you the fastest shark (the Mako), the biggest shark (the Whale shark), and much more! In exploring his interest in sharks, I’ve learned quite a bit myself. One of the things I’ve learned is how many people are terrified by these creatures. I’ve learned that the number of shark attacks involving people pale in comparison to the million sharks killed in the fishing industry for things such as Shark Fin Soup. It’s made me question who the real predator is. With my son’s birthday approaching, I find myself asking what we can do to save our oceans and these precious creatures.

I’m sharing this information for several reasons:

• Our perceptions are often way off. It’s important to take a look at things from many perspectives. I didn’t realize that some of our sharks are endangered.
• With Earth Day here, it has me questioning how I can take care of the planet and reduce my carbon footprint, not just for the sharks and the oceans, but for our whole planet.
• It’s made me realize that we need to do more. With every purchase I make and every product I use, I should be asking if it’s helping or hurting our planet.

For specific tips, make sure you visit other recent posts on this topic and join the www.wecansolveit.org campaign.

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