Kids Take Green Lessons to Heart, Then to Home

Kids are America's new eco-police
By Clay Dillow,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 10, 2008 11:23 AM CDT
Kids Take Green Lessons to Heart, Then to Home
Second graders from Vieja Valley School in Santa Barbara, Calif., plant seedlings and pledge to preserve the environment as part of Doubletree Hotels' "Teaching Kids to CARE" program.   (Photo: Business Wire)

They’re watching. No, not surveillance cameras; the growing population of “eco-kids”—children who, lectured on sustainability at school and elsewhere, are pushing green practices at home. They rummage through garbage bins, agitate for hybrid vehicles, and even even turn off the water while parents are brushing their own teeth, the New York Times reports. "He learned it at school," one mom says of her 4-year-old eco-cop.

As everyone from the Girl Scouts to movie studios climbs on the bandwagon, kids boost eco-awareness in households nationwide. They're not always discreet—one mom "sat there and cringed" as her son called out a water-wasting neighbor—but they mean well. “For us, Earth Day is a reason to go outside,” one father says. “But for them it’s a religious holiday.”
(More green home stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X