Thinking Green

It’s good to think green. Thinking green leads to living green and we will all live longer, happier lives on our big blue planet if we live green. One of our hopes is that the GreenBird House will help people think about the little things they can do to help the planet. As people go through the process of putting together a GreenBird House, they will pick up some information about birds and how the birds are affected by the way humans are using natural resources. The paper the house is made of is recycled. Maybe they’ll wonder if they’ve used some of the paper that went into making this house. Or, hopefully, it will make them think about recycling more of the paper they use everyday to help save trees and create more paper birdhouses or other useful objects.

We have developed lesson plans to meet "No Child Left Inside" and academic content standards. These plans help teachers and students connect to the great outdoors. There are other things we can do to help, too. Encourage birds to live in your backyard by planting flowers that provide seeds that birds like. For example finches love to dine on the seeds of coreopsis. And many birds spend their days hunting insects to eat and to feed their young. Unfortunately many of the pesticides and insecticides that kill insects also kill birds or, obviously, kill the insects the birds need for food. Using organic fertilizers and organic pest controls will help solve this problem. In return, the birds will help control the insects! Click here to download the lesson plans!

The GreenBird house may be used in concert with a number of lessons:
• Bird Study
• Bird Habitat Loss
• Recycling
• Local Ecosystems
• Earth's Ecosystem
• Art Projects
• Geography
• Citizenship
• Climate Change
green in the class room

If you take a look at the paper that the GreenBird House is made of, you’ll notice it is actually three layers laminated together. The center is chipboard that is recycled from boxes and scrap cardboard. The whiter outer layers are recycled from used copier paper. So, the next time you are at the office and feel like you’re buried under a mountain of memos and copies of copies – recycle them into more paper for our birdhouses! Seriously, the best thing to do is to use as little paper as possible. Send e-mails not memos, pdfs instead of mailing information. Think twice before printing something out. Will you really need a hard copy of it? Does your office recycle pop cans and plastic? One water cooler really is better than hundreds of water bottles. Thinking green works!

I was a child before the era of the seatbelt and before the carseat for children came into being. One of my favorite places to ride in the car was on the shelf in the back window. Fortunately, we never had a head-on crash or I would have become a human projectile and flown out the front window, and maybe taken one of my siblings’ heads with me. By the time I had children, seatbelts and carseats were part of life – literally. As children they never went anywhere without being strapped in. They learned early on about car safety and the importance of buckling up. As adults buckling up is second nature to them – and now they strap in my grandchildren, too. Just as we did with buckling up, now we have to teach children to think green until it becomes second nature for them, and their children, and their children. That starts at home but carries over to the classroom. Today the three Rs are Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Environmentally friendly Greenbird House made from 100% Biodegradable Recycled Paper