Environmental activities for children and their families, carried in a shoulder bag with an adjustable strap made from fairtrade certified organic cotton.
Wow - what a week!!! For a start Sylvie and I got to spend it together having lived at opposite sides of the country for the past year. We headed off to Kelowna for the Get to Know International Unconference. This was a gathering to connect leaders in education, governance, research, business and grassroots activism who care about youth environmental education. We got to celebrate World Oceans Day (June 8th) with Wyland, Robert Bateman's 80th Birthday, and the 10th anniversary of the Get to Know Program.
I was fortunate to sit down with Raffi last week and find out a little more about his Child Honouring Centre here on Salt Spring Island. It was wonderful to hear a little more about his Child Honouring vision and to understand more about the rationale and history behind the project.
Child Honoring is 'a children-first approach to healing communities and restoring ecosystems. It views how we regard and treat our young as the key to building a humane and sustainable world.'
It is wonderful when you hear such remarks from children who are engrossed in getting their hands dirty and up close and personal with nature - literally! This was my experience today as my sons and I started planting the first of our vegetables in our kitchen garden. When the chatter wasn't about the size and number of worms we were coming across it was about the menus they were going to create from all the harvest! Leek and potato soup seemed rather popular as well as who could grow the largest zucchini in time for the zucchini race at the Fall Fair later in the year!
I have a wonderful friend whose facebook postings often include a list of the creatures he has seen that day..
'Oystercatchers in the fields and a marsh harrier over the house, two drake mandarins ...glaucous gull...two cranes...female marsh harrier and a ringtail hen harrier...daisies in flower on the lawn.'
Yesterday my eldest son was on a mission - to return to a beach we had explored a few days earlier, this time clutching his fossil hunting kit put together by his geologist grandpa. In his wonderfully convincing 9 year old opinion, he had discovered an ichthyosaur vertebra and was determined to dig it out of the surrounding rock. My younger son got involved in the expedition as chief 'brusher' dusting away the chipped rock to keep the area clear for the task in hand. The banter between the two of them was wonderful - such enthusiasm and anticipation. Where was the rest of the sea monster?
