Earth Day Ideas

It has been a while since I last posted but I'm going to try to be more diligent and consistent in my postings from now on. I realize that Earth Day 2008 is coming to an end but I still wanted to share some resources that could be used on every day of the year to help remind us about how we can take care of the Earth.

First of all, there are a variety of Green search engines that you can use to be more environmentally conscious. Ecocho works to offset Carbon emissions by planting 2 trees for every 1,000 searches conducted. The trees are paid for by ads on the site. Blackle is essentially Google but with a black background, which requires less energy on the part of your monitor.

ElectroCity is a SimCity type game where kids get to be the mayor of their own town. In order for their town to grow they need to make decisions about how to supply power and attract more citizens. Mayors are graded on their impact on the environment, population growth and other factors. The game is free and doesn't require any registration.

The final tool I want to share is the Planet Green Game, which provides students with different tasks to complete as they learn about the environment and what they can do to have less of an impact on it. The tasks range between very easy and more complicated so it's hard to tell exactly what age this tool was geared towards but it's worth taking a look at either way.