Children are Getting Outside for Earth Week, April Awareness Month

The 40th Earth Day day is upon us April 22, and many are celebrating the entire Earth Week, not to mention April’s Children & Nature Awareness Month. Earth Day’s legacy, from that first one in 1970, heralded a new era of conserving our land, air, water and other resources. At the government level, it sparked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and legislation for cleaner air and water that spread worldwide. On a personal level, many people around the globe began caring for the planet and feeling connected to nature in a variety of ways they hadn’t before.

In more recent years, Earth Day has been met with increasing celebrations in communities, homes and schools. The children and grandchildren of those first Earth Day participants are being engaged in a new way that perhaps speaks to a greater understanding of the role children and families will take in future conservation efforts, as well as a greater feeling of connection to nature and the Earth. As Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at the recent White House summit on Childhood Obesity:

We need to get our young people and our society as a whole more connected to the outdoors than they have been.

He continued, I believe that one of the great contributions on this administration, one of its legacies, will be what it does with the outdoors, in terms of a conservation agenda for the 21st century. That conservation agenda can only work if you have people connected to that agenda.

In addition to the growing body of political thought about growing a nature movement by engaging children, Earth Day and other celebrations are just plain fun. The growing School Garden movement has allowed many events to take place in school gardens. Urban and rural communities, nature centers, youth leaders, and family nature clubs are realizing the power of getting people together to enjoy nature. And parents, some of whom may want to return a sense of wonder to their and their children’s lives, are increasingly seeking meaningful activities in nature.

See our map of Earth Day and April Awareness events around the world for ways you can join in the celebration.