WORLD Six types of trash? What may sound like a lot of fuss over garbage has become second nature among Germans, the world’s recycling champions. (New York Times) Use our resources to get some ideas about recycling and other ways of going green. Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers Toolkit, including a link to today’s MapMaker Interactive map. … Continue reading Where Are Citizens Recycling?
Plastic pollution is now considered one of the largest environmental threats facing humans and animals globally—and the problem keeps getting bigger. My brother and I first learned about plastic pollution while we were delivering animal rescue supplies to the Gulf of Mexico during the BP Gulf oil spill. Ever since then, we have been educating ourselves on the subject and we have actually authored an … Continue reading Kids Tackle Plastic Pollution
ENVIRONMENT What do you recycle, and what do you trash? Researchers say that “[a]fter we finish using a product, we somehow evaluate, ‘does the product still look like it could be useful?’” Tons of recyclable material—scraps of paper, dented cans, broken bottles—end up in the landfill every year. (Testing this would be a great, do-able science fair project!) (NPR) Use our materials to understand how … Continue reading Recycling Discrimination
Unless you have been living in a hole in the middle of the Pacific on an uninhabited island with no communication with the outside world, you have probably heard about this year’s NCAA men’s college basketball tournament (fondly known as “March Madness”). Each year during the tourney betting pools are created, brackets are filled out, and many hours of passionate, tense, but oh-so-exciting basketball action are watched–and it all leads up to the FINAL FOUR!
This year the last four teams left standing were: University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY), University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT), Butler University (Indianapolis, IN), and Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA). In a classic David-versus-Goliath kind of showdown, Goliath (a.k.a. UCONN) prevailed over the small but mighty (and sadly unsuccessful) Butler Bulldogs. However, what I would like to bring to your attention today has more lasting impacts than a trophy. This year the NCAA Final Four took one for the team and played it ecologically and environmentally friendly.
1. Cleaning products
Bracket Town hosted thousands of fans this year who flocked to Houston
to watch the grand finale of college basketball. Thousands of fans
equates to millions of nasty little microscopic germs just waiting to
find a host–Germ-X please! This year all of the cleaning products used
at Bracket Town were certified by Green Seal. Instead of adding more
toxic substances to the environment, Green Seal products lessen toxic
exposure. Clean, but not harmful–the perfect combination for slightly
germophobic people like me.
