Summer Fun!

By Chris Olson, Outreach Coordinator

I have to admit that fall may be my favorite season, but I really, really, really love summer as well. This is going to be my first summer in four years not working at summer bible camp. I already miss it. The campfires, the starry nights, the screaming kids; they all came together to make for a splendid three months. My last summer there I worked as the Sustainability Coordinator and did my best to incorporate nature into the regular bible study curriculum as best I could. I enjoyed it very much and I feel like the kids gained much while looking at the Bible and God from the view of caring for creation, a view they don't often see.

I may not be at camp this year but I can offer a number of resources and activities to connect kids with nature and creation care this summer. Earth Ministry has a number of pages on its website specifically for Children and Youth (click the link or click on the picture to go to the main page) that offer books, videos, educational materials, and games to engage youth in learning about and caring for the environment. I developed some of the activities last fall and I'd like to share a couple of them with you in this post.

Icebergs and Polar Bears

Have all the kids line up on one side of the gym. Spaced out around the other side of the gym should be numerous gymnastics mats (the kind that are rectangular and about 6 ft X 10 ft or anything similar). The kids are polar bears and the mats are icebergs. Whenever the game leader says "Go" the kids have to run to stand on the icebergs. For the first round there should be enough mats so that every kid will be standing in a group on one of the mats (meaning no one is “out”). Instruct the kids to go back to the starting line and the leader announces that the global temperature has increased by X-degrees or that the carbon dioxide has reached X-parts per million (whatever is most appropriate for the age group/ties in with the overall activity) and folds over or removes one of the icebergs because it “melted.” After saying "Go", the kids race over and will either be more cramped on the remaining icebergs or some may not be able to fit on at all and they are out. This continues until the temperature gets so hot that there are only a few icebergs and a few polar bears left or until there are none left at all. This can then be tied in with global climate change and how we as humans are changing things for the animals and for the world. We must care for all the children of all species for all time.

Fair Ball

Tell the campers to form a large circle (whatever is appropriate for the size of the group). Scatter a bunch of balls in the middle of the circle. Explain to campers that they are going to race to gather as many balls as possible. Before starting the game, form the campers into three groups. One group can run to get the balls, the second group can only crawl and the third group must wiggle on their stomachs across the floor to gather the balls. All groups must move their assigned ways for the entire game and all must bring their balls back to their group’s headquarters (where ever the game leader points that out to be). Clearly, this game is unfair. By the time the campers who are only allowed to wiggle reach the balls, there probably won’t be any left, while the campers allowed to run probably will have most of the balls. Replay the game a few times, giving each camper a chance to run, crawl, or wiggle. Once finished, discuss what happened in the activity. Talk about personal feelings, fairness, and the fun factor. Make a connection between the activity and the world’s limited resources that we all must share. Discuss the need for an equitable distribution on the world’s resources to all people instead of to only a small percentage of the world’s population. Make a special note of how the world’s resources will be affected by climate change and how that change will disproportional hurt the people in the world who are “wiggling and crawling”, making it even harder for them to gather the resources they need to survive. Ask what can we do to help bring about greater fairness/justice in our world? This is a good activity to work Micah 6:8 into.

Environmental Health & Mindful Living

By Beth Anderson, Outreach Associate

As I’m sure you’ve heard, April is now Earth Month—we have a whole 30 days for environmentally-focused action! Now that the busyness of holy week and Easter are behind us, I urge you to consider how you and your faith community might celebrate (and help protect and preserve) creation.

One of the most pressing environmental and justice issues of our time is the presence of toxic chemicals in everyday products. Environmental health can be a difficult subject to discuss—it can seem as though the problem is too big for us to handle.

To that end, Earth Ministry and the National Council of Churches are offering a free, downloadable toolkit for facilitating an adult forum or small study group around the topic of toxics.

The primary resource, Mindful Living: Human Health, Pollution, and Toxics, includes detailed information about some of the most dangerous and pervasive chemicals we all encounter in our daily lives. It also includes a theological discussion about our mandate to care for creation and especially for our bodies—our sacred “temples.”

To make it easy for people to organize a group study, there is an accompanying Gathering Guide with ideas for how best to incorporate the Mindful Living material into your congregation’s adult education program.

Download the Mindful Living: Human Health, Pollution, and Toxics resource and its companion, the Mindful Living Gathering Guide, today!

To Sit With A Tree

By Chris Olson, Outreach Coordinator

The United Church of Christ's website describes Lent as "a season of self-examination, prayer, fasting, and works of love." For Lent this year I am focusing on works of love, specifically towards the environment. I decided to do a personal book study of Women Pioneers for the Environment by Mary Joy Breten. The book profiles 42 women who, through their passion and acts of love, helped start, support, or push forward the conservation movement in the 19th and 20th centuries. Each week I will read a couple chapters and then set time aside for an intentional act of love for the environment based off of the profiles of the women I read about. In her Preface and Introduction, Mary Joy writes "Women's concern for the health of the planet dates back centuries. For example, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a German nun, writer, artist, and mystic, forewarned about the ecological peril now facing the earth. From the beginning of the more recent environmental movement, women have been the force driving grassroots activism. Women...stepped out of their traditional, subservient roles and created profound changes that help ensure the fundamental right of all living things to a healthy world."

The first chapter, entitled "Tree Huggers and Tree Planters", profiles six women including Amrita Devi, Colleen McCrory, Judi Bari, Harriet Bullitt, Kathryn Fuller, and Wangari Maathai. Luckily for me, Wangari Maathai is one of my environmental heroes so I was incredibly excited to read more about her. In 1977, Maathai started the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, a movement now made up of over sixty thousand women who grow and plant native trees to reforest and rejuvenate the Kenyan countryside. Maathai was the first woman in East or Central Africa to earn a doctorate, become an associate professor at the University of Nairobi, or head a department at the university. From 2003- 2007 she served as Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources in Kenya's ninth parliament. In 2004, Maathai and the Greenbelt Movement were awarded the Nobel Prize.

I had the good fortune of meeting Wangari a few years ago (check out the picture!!) and hear her speak about her experiences in Kenya over the past 30 years. She told a story that had a powerful effect on me as a college student trying to figure out how to make a difference in the world, yet seeing the often hopeless headlines and news reports about environmental destruction. I will summarize it for you. There was a beautiful forest that one day caught fire and the fire raged out of control across the land. All the animals in the forest fled to edge and stood watching the flames, feeling overwhelmed. Except one animal, a tiny hummingbird, decided to do something so it flew to the nearest stream, picked up a tiny drop of water in its beak, flew back to the forest, and dropped it over the fire. Back and forth it flew as fast as it could while all the other animals, such as the elephant with much a bigger trunk to carry water, stood watching and discouraging it saying, "What can you do? The fire is too big. Its hopeless." The little hummingbird simply said, "I'm doing the best I can."

Our small (or big) acts of love are the best we can do in the face of a seemingly hopeless situation, but it is our faith in our Creator, our planet, and the millions of acts of love from individuals around the world that fill us with hope and renew our efforts when we feel discouraged. This week I am going to take time to sit in silence, solidarity, and meditation with a tree. Maybe that sounds silly but how often do we take time to simply sit with some of the most amazing life forms in all of creation: living, growing, respirating trees. I'll let you know about my experience next week and in the mean time you can watch a video of Wangari Maathai telling her hummingbird story by clicking on this link or the picture of Wangari and I above.

~Peace~

Recognizing Voices

By Mikaila Gawryn
Outreach Associate

One of my favorite pastimes is listening to the quails outside my parents house in Nevada. Wind pulls sand across the red rock mountains, and if you're quiet these plump little ground dwellers will tiptoe out from behind the rocks and cacti, bobbing their full plumes as if swimming through the hot air. Their cooing makes the silence around them feel even more dense.

I've recently been reminded of how wonderful it is to recognize a friend's voice over the telephone wire, or know immediately who is approaching by the familiar sound of their footfall on the front porch. It occurs to me that with some practice I might learn to recognize my non-human neighbors with a similar familiarity. I've heard this skill described as environmental literacy, and if that is the correct term, than I'd like to learn how to read.

The few neighbors that I've met so far come from northwest Washington (where I grew up) and Nevada, where my parents live now. I've included pictures and sounds from a few of my favorites for you to enjoy. Who's voices or faces in nature do you love the most?

Big Horn Sheep

Raccoons

Ask Deanna: Field Games for Kids

by Deanna Matzen

I'm afraid my timing isn't the best with this blog post. In Seattle it feels as though summer is drawing to a close as kids are getting ready to start school. While I hold hope for a beautiful September and October, this post may not do you much good. But hopfully it will plant a seed that will mature next summer.

This issue of Ask Deanna is about field games for kids with an ecology theme. "Anne" was in charge of her church's family camp and wanted to know if we had any resources for their camp with the theme of "Handle with Care".

Thankfully, I had not the power of the internet at my finger tips, but rather the power of interns who have worked at summer camps. So I want to share with you the games we suggested to Anne. If you have a favorite field game with a sustainbility theme, please post a comment with the description.

Mosquito, Salmon, Bear

There is a field with a line drawn half-way across. Before the round, each team decides what they're going to be, either mosquito, bear, or salmon, without letting the other team know. One team stands on one side of the line, about three feet away from it, facing out, and the other team stands on the other side of the line, about three feet away, facing out. At the count of three, the teams all turn around (so the two teams will be facing each other) and make the noise/action of the animal their team chose. Salmon chases mosquito, mosquito chases bear, and bear chases salmon to the other side of the field. Whoever is the chasing team tries to tag as many people as they can, and when they do, that person joins the other team.

The learning part comes after a few rounds, where you take one of the animals out of the food chain (the salmon) and just have the bear and mosquito. And what happens? There will be a ton of mosquitoes and no bears. In the first part you can (hopefully) point out that generally the teams moved back and forth in size and all stayed relatively equal because that's how the food chain works. When one animal gets taken out, problems arise and the food chain doesn't work. So even though mosquitoes might be annoying, they feed the salmon, which in turn feed the bears, which feed the mosquitoes.

Nature Scavenger Hunt

Send out teams to find different items in nature (i.e. leaf, needle, flower, pine cone, etc.). The first team back with an example of each item or the team with the most items wins. Items to be "found" can include things to describe. A variation could be to have the children take photos of what they find using a digital camera.

For further ideas, see:
Nature Scavenger Hunt (National Wildlife Federation)
Earth Day Nature Hunt (Windstar Foundation)

Recycling Relay

Start with a loose pile of recyclable and non-recyclable items, have teams move them from one end of the field to the other, placing them in the appropriate recycling or garbage receptacle. Points are deducted for mis-placing items and bonus points are given for the first team to finish. Alternatively you could have the children sort the items into three categories: Reduce, Reuse, or Recycle.

For further ideas, see:
Recycling Relay (Idaho Department of Environmenatl Quality)
Lesson Plan: Recycle Relay (Solid Waste District)