WALK TO SCHOOL

Let's walk to school again this Friday (May 31st)! Please leave early enough to arrive safely at school by 8:00 a.m. Walking to school is great exercise, and it also helps reduce the number of cars in the carline and keeps our air clean. There will be policemen stationed at different points to assist with walking. Students should plan to go home from school their regular way. Enjoy your walk!
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DID YOU KNOW...? Two recent studies have found that walking to school is associated with higher overall physical activity throughout the day. (In other words: if you start active, you'll stay active.)

There are many potential benefits of physical activity for youth including:

• Weight and blood pressure control
• Bone, muscle, and joint health and maintenance
• Reduction in the risk of diabetes
• Improved psychological welfare
• Better academic performance

SOMETHING ELSE TO THINK ABOUT-------------->

Walking and bicycling to school also may help contribute to the developmental health of children. Some children today have less independence than their parents did and this lack of independence can negatively impact their social behavior development. Driving a child from home to school limits the child's opportunities to interact with their neighborhood and other children. Children who spend more time in supervised structured activities have fewer opportunities to explore their neighborhoods. Children may lose some relatively "safe" opportunities to make decisions independently. They miss some of the lessons gained from learning from mistakes and the confidence that comes with success. Questions also have been raised regarding how children who spend all their travel time in motor vehicles will master fundamental pedestrian and bicycling skills and what kind of drivers they will become because of their lack of experience negotiating traffic as walkers or bicyclists.

(Based on www.saferoutesinfo.org)

EARTH DAY 2013 - APRIL 22.

LET'S CELEBRATE!
Send an e-mail to gogreen@gmail.com to invite a GoGreen volunteer to YOUR classroom!
So many ways to be kind to our Earth ...

- separate your waste in school and/or at home (compost organic waste, sort plastics/papers/aluminum)

- go on a nature walk (eg. on the school's nature trail)

- study about recycling (ask for GoGreen's play recycling truck)

- watch a puppet show about waste decomposition (ask for GoGreen's puppets and props)

- do green crafts (ideas here)

- play the recycling scavenger hunt (Sprout took some photos of green spots in Clemson. Find on the map where the photos were taken! You can see the map and photos here. )

- play the "oil game" (game handbook and video)

- discuss the "The Story of Stuff" (see videos here)

- read books about environmental issues (available at our library)

 

-check your ecological footprint here!

International Recycling

Webelo scouts from Troop 235 are busy recycling at the International Festival! THANK YOU, SCOUTS!

Did you know ..... The  Environmental Performance Index (EPI) completed by Yale University found that in green efforts the U.S. ranks only 39th from 163 countries examined?

The EPI rates countries by assigning numeric values for different aspects of environmental policies. Each of 163 countries was graded on a scale of 1 to 100 (with 100 being the highest score). The EPI ranks many European and South American countries higher that the U.S. The EPI takes into account not just recycling, but other factors like purity of drinking water, carbon emissions and disease rates.

2010 EPI Top 10 Countries With Scores (Out of a possible 100)

1. Switzerland, 95.5
2. Sweden, 93.1
3. Norway, 93.1
4. Finland, 91.4
5. Costa Rica, 90.5
6. Austria, 89.4
7. New Zealand, 88.9
8. Latvia, 88.8
9. Colombia, 88.3
10. France, 87.8

Well, we still have quite a way to go to make it into the top 10! Keep up Go-ing Green, kids!!!!