Connect With Nature Through Earth Day Games and Activities for Turnoff Week
Earth Day 2008 on April 22 will take place during Turnoff Week (April 21-27) this year, provided the ultimate opportunity to think about our connection with nature. Children and adults spend too much time watching screens. This takes away from other important activities, such as reading, fitness and most significantly with the natural environment. The enthusiasm from these coinciding events is an excellent opportunity for the current routines again to us and our children with nature and the renewal of respect for the values of our world and its inhabitants.
Turnoff Week 2008 (April 21 – 27) is a national effort to raise awareness of the public about the consequences of excessive screen time and its correlation with the children. It is estimated that more than 20 million people participate each year. “American young people spend more time watching television, recreational use of computers and playing video games than anything else,” says Robert Kesten, director of The Center for SCREEN TIME-Awareness. “If we are looking for a world with a future, then we have to maintain the human interaction with others and the environment.”
There are currently two celebrated Earth Day: The United Nations Earth Day was introduced as a UNESCO conference on the environment in 1969 and was the first event on the equinox in March 1970. The April 22 event was first proposed by the US senator Gaylord Nelson as a nationwide grassroots environmental demonstration in which 20 million Americans demonstrated for a sustainable environment. According to the Earth Day Network, this annual event is now regarded as the largest secular holiday in the world, celebrated by more than half a billion people a year.
“The purpose of Earth Day is to help people make simple changes in their daily lives that reducing fuel consumption, saving water, generating less waste, and lead to sustainable buying habits. Simple things , as the disabling of the TV on a daily basis, can lead to a positive change without prejudice to our lifestyle “stated Keith Treffry, Director of Communications for Earth Day Canada. “It may seem small, but when your neighbor has their part, and their neighbours, then suddenly small actions will be something big and important.”
One big change we can make is to turn off all of our screens and spending more time outside. You can not connect with the beauty of nature by the meeting on a screen. Children should be excluded, with all their senses to the natural world. They need to feel the heat of the sun or the coolness of the wind, the smell of the flowers, hear the sound of the leaves whispering and feel the dew drops on a leaf. This hands-on encounters, can not be found on a screen. Exploring the beauty of nature helps build respect for our planet and all its inhabitants.
You can reconnect with nature by many non-screen activities for both children and adults:
* Start A weekly walking or eco-club to share your interest with other families.
* Schedule in a daily walk or run.
* Keep a diary nature.
* Introduction of a small organic garden and plant some vegetables.
* Plant or adopt a tree.
* Study in detail a local ecosystem, like an old log of a pond.
* Keep the details of an everyday object in nature.
* Experience the beauty of nature by focusing on the different senses.
* Listen slowly toward nature and write what you hear. *
sit under a tree and write a poem or a song.
* Draw or paint images of a landscape or objects in nature.
* Look for patterns in nature (such as fractals, the golden ratio and Fibonacci numbers).
April 17 2008 01:04 pm | Environment
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