LILL's LIST

One of the things I like most about homeschooling my kids is that I get to do things with them that I wouldn’t if they went to school. Sure, schools have field trips that parents can chaperone, but I’d rather just walk out the door and join the kids in the fields and woods around our rural home. One opportunity that lets us do that is Project Budburst.

If you’d like to participate, you can go to their web site and sign up to report from your area. They’re collecting information on when buds appear and open, when trees leaf out and other signs of spring from around the nation. If you register, you can save your information so that you can compare it with spring’s arrival for years to come. If you’re like me, this works better than depending on my sometimes faulty memory or writing it down and then forgetting where I put it.

Phenology is the science of measuring the seasonal events of nature and many famous people like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin have done it. However, there are many more ordinary people – non-scientists with no formal training – who are phenologists and contribute to scientific research on global warming and environmental matters. It’s a good habit to develop in kids, because it can lead to a lifetime of paying attention to nature’s changes and being involved in caring for the earth.

Nestwatch is another good project for families or kids. Like its name says, it involves watching nests and reporting what you see. It’s one of the oldest programs of its kind for citizen scientists and has been around since 1965. Its data includes the number of eggs in a nest, when they’re laid, how many birds hatch and data on how the fledgelings develop. For those who need a little help with nest watching, there are links on the site to workshops and information to help you get started.

The program’s participants have monitored over 300,000 nests and this information will be very important in global warming research. Many of the data comes from city dwellers who observe nests in trees, on telephone poles, under eaves and on top of tall buildings. You don’t have to live in the country to find nests. Birds are everywhere.

If you’d like an excuse to get outside this spring, either of these programs would be a good one. There’s nothing nicer than combining learning with a family outing. It’s not expensive. All you need is a notebook, maybe some binoculars or field glasses and an interest in nature. Oh, and a picnic lunch would be a good idea because nothing stimulates kids’ appetites like some healthy exercise in the fresh air.

Our kids will be living in the world we build with the choices we make today. I hope the world they inherit will be one where renewable energy has replaced dependence on fossil fuel, where global warming has been halted and organic and natural products and ingredients have replaced toxic chemicals and carcinogens. Where the air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink.

Here are some links to sites that share that philosophy and help kids learn more about the environment and have fun at the same time. If you know of a site that I’ve missed, please let me know with a comment and I’ll add it to the Green Links for Kids in the sidebar.

enature How can you not like a site that lets you download ringtones of animal mating calls (my favorite is the howler monkey), track bird migration with interactive maps, learn how to garden to attract wildlife or ask an expert about the wildlife in your neck of the woods?

Eco Kids You don’t have to be from north of the border to appreciate this Canadian site. Your kids will enjoy the games, contests, coloring pages and activities on this colorful, kid-friendly site.

Recycle City From the EPA, this site has four neigborhood, each with interactive features that are fun and educational. I like the scavenger hunt creator.

EEK! Environmental Education for Kids Coloring pages, riddles, Critter Corner, Nature Notes and recipes. Lots to explore.

PBS Nature Interactives Tons of interactive games that let kids “help” animals and the environment. Help a cheetah survive in the wild. Explore a hippo from the inside out! Hours of fun and learning.

And when you’ve explored these sites, check back because I’ll be adding links to the sidebar as my kids find them. (Don’t tell them that I spend quite a bit of time having fun too, while I look for green kid’s links. Hey, I have to make sure they’re okay, right?)

A wise woman once said something to me that makes a lot of sense. She said if you have something critical to say about someone, you should always sleep on it and see if you feel the same way the next morning. But, she told me, if you have something nice to say, say it right away so that you don’t forget or get sidetracked.

I have something nice to say about two people whose blogs have taught me a lot. Kathy at Safe Mama and Karen at Best of Mother Earth. I subscribe to both of their blogs and they’re two of the few blogs that I always read. (Another one is Bore Me To Tears.)

Yesterday, Kathy’s blog had a very important post on 1,4-Dioxane in Organic Body Care Products. If you haven’t read it, please do for your sake and your family’s sake. Thanks to this post, I’ll be making some big changes in the products I buy, because some of my longtime favorites were on the list.

And then there’s Karen’s blog, where I learned that there’s nitrate-free brisket for St. Patrick’s Day corned beef dinner. Where I’ve found recommendations for so many things that have become staples at our house and where I’ve laughed out loud at her humor and upbeat outlook on life.  It’s like reading a friend’s journal.

So, thanks, you two, for blogging about things that you care about and please don’t stop. And now I need to go check the bathrooms for unsafe personal care products and  then rummage through the food cupboards to make sure I have everything I need for making corned beef hash from the leftover brisket.

Lill’s List is now in the Green category at alltop.com along with some other very good eco-sites. Like the other alltop.com categories, Guy Kawasaki has attracted the cream of the crop and some other sites that I hadn’t heard of until they showed up on Alltop’s radar. Now, several of them have become regular stops on my daily trip around the Green web.

I’ve found that Green at Alltop goes very well with organic Irish Breakfast tea and whole wheat toast spread with Irish butter and homemade wild Maine blueberry jam. It’s also where I found a green site with a link to a green maven. Well, it is St. Patrick’s Day, but that’s not why this maven is green. This Green Maven is a search engine you can use to find websites, products and services that are environmentally responsible. It’s where I started my search for lodging for my annual spring trip.

Every year, around my birthday, Daughter and I take a trip to VT and NH. Money is an issue, especially this year when gas prices and everything else are rising faster than Geekdaddy’s paycheck and my freelance pittance. My challenge is to find a place to stay at a price we can afford. In addition to that though, if I can, I’d like to stay where the owners care about the environment as much as they care about their guests.

I was some chuffed when my search turned up a whole page of helpful links to hotels, motels, inns and B&Bs. In what I took for an auspicious sign from the Travel Gods, the first link was for sustainable lodging in NH. Within minutes, I had found the perfect motel in the area we plan to visit. What’s more, the price was well within my budget and about the same as a major chain motel would be.

Of course, we’ll have to eat, so I clicked on the Sustainable NH dining link and found some eco-conscious eateries in the area. I noticed that there were plenty of vegetarian and vegan options, although that’s not a consideration for Daughter and I who are serious omnivores. (Pay no attention to the rumor that we’ve become chocolatarians. Why, it hardly makes up half of our diet when we’re on vacation.)

I’d like to say that we’ll be driving a new hybrid or electric car on our trip, but that’s still in the future for us. We try to make up for our not-so-great-on-gas-mileage car by only making one trip a week to do errands and hit the libraries, and by keeping our vacation trips down to two a year. Plus, we try to stay where we don’t need to use the car very often, and we walk whenever possible.

My dream for the future is to live where I don’t have to use a car to get to the basic necessities of life, but that’s not going to happen until we can get out from under the rapidly depreciating pile of sticks that pretends to shelter us from Maine’s weather tantrums. Until then, I’ll be as green as I can be in other ways and keep the car trips to a minimum. And I’ll stop in at Alltop.com to check out developments in the Eco-Sphere.

One of the reasons I love to go to the library is because I can use their high-speed connection to watch all the videos that my clunky old ISDN line can’t handle at home. People are always sending me great links to video sites, so I paste them into a notebook file, then visit them one by one while my laptop is linked up to the library’s wi-fi.

This week, I found a site that’s been around for over a year, but somehow I’d missed it. Green Energy TV has videos on solar, wind, green building, recycling, webinars and many other subjects. I particularly like the video about the pedal powered tv. If I’d had one of those this winter, maybe it would have counteracted the extra carbs I needed to ward off Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Over at ZDNet, John Cleese narrates How Do People Use Solar Power? from a film called The Power of the Sun. I’d listen to John Cleese read the phone book, but that’s not why I like this video. It’s a good introduction to solar power and I’m sure the film is even better. And while you’re at ZDNet, check out their Green Enterprise Video channel. You could spend hours watching videos that show how to succeed in business without wrecking the planet.

If you have a warped sense of humor like I do, you’ve probably already watched How Can We Make the War in Iraq More Eco-Friendly? from The Onion. If not, zip on over and watch it before Homeland Security makes them take it down or something. I admit that The Onion goes a little over the good-taste line at times, but most of their stuff is wickedly funny and aimed to tweak the pompous twits who seem to be running things these days.

My last stop before I shut down the laptop and head for the checkout desk with a few whodunits and the latest Terry Pratchett Discworld novel, is an oldie but goodie. In 2006, Treehugger.com and Seventh Generation got together and sponsored a contest called Convenient Truth, a green video contest. I’m making my way through over 130 entries and so far, they’re all good. However, I can see why Little Guy (Make a Start) is the Grand Prizewinner. This particular little guy makes it very clear that you don’t have to be grim to be green. Enjoy.