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As another Earthday rolls around, I’m reminded of how much nutrition and a clean earth can be connected.  And of course, it provides more opportunties to teach our children how to keep themselves and and our home planet healthy.  Here are just a few ways to help your family be nutritionally and environmentally aware.

• Say so long to single-serve packages.  Sure the box of 10 individual bags of nuts, or crackers or cookies is convenient but it’s also costly, both financially and environmentally.  Try buying a full size box or bag and a few small sealable, reuseable containers such as Lock & Lock (see my Dec 2010 blog on kitchen gadgets), Tupperware, or Rubbermaid and create your own single-servings with a lot less waste and $$.

• Make sure your entire family has a reusable water cup, and use them!  No need for umpteen bottles or cups of water every week.  If every student in my daughter’s kindergarten class used their own cup at snack time, there would be about 4000 fewer cups in landfills over the course of one school year.  And that’s  just one class, in one school, in one town.

• Its never to early to teach your children that garbage goes in the trash or recycle bin not on the ground or out the window.  It never ceases to amaze me how many young people and adults I see littering on a regular basis.  Gum wrappers, bottles, cups, and so much more, it really adds up.  In fact, in just a short time yesterday, my daughter’s class picked up over 3 pounds of litter in their school yard–it looked fairly clean from a distance, but you can see how one little thing here and another there can really pile up!

• Start a garden–no matter if you plant one item or twenty, growing your own food is a great way to teach kids where food comes from and why its so important to keep the Earth clean.

• Start a compost pile–especially great if you’re following the above tip.  Not only will your garden thrive naturally, but you’ll be throwing that much less in the garbage.

• Find great music about keeping our planet clean to both motivate and teach kids–it can be a great soundtrack while you’re gardening.  My favorite is EARTH DAY by Steve Elci & Friends.  Between now and May 9th you can download it FREE (and help Steve out at the same time) at https://earthday.sonicbids.com/BandDetails.aspx?b=28496&sr=false&bn=Steve+Elci+&+Friends

• Go to your local library or bookstore and check out books in the Why Should I? series for kids.  There’s one on recycling, saving water, saving energy, and keeping the planet clean.

Let me know some of your favorite ways to keep our planet clean for our kids and their future!