Use the worldwide Web to go green

Kids, want to learn how you can have a blast on the Internet and help curb global warming at the same time? Read on.

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Last school year, students in a fourth-grade class taught by Ted Wells at the Park School in Brookline, Mass., created their own website to help teach people how to take care of the environment. The temporary site had essays, poems, cartoons, and even movies the class made to encourage people to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

"We brainstormed ways to get the world to recycle, and half the class wanted to make a movie," says Jamie, the student who ran the class website. "So we just brainstormed the plot. It was really fun. We broke into groups, we pieced it all together, wrote a script, and kind of ad-libbed it along the way." This movie introduced the character of Recycling Boy, a Superman-like hero who is now famous at the Park School.

Jamie says that technology such as computers, websites, and especially games could really help kids learn about the environment, especially because they are available from anywhere.

"If every single kid in the world would go to those kinds of websites, it would really help society," he says.

•Earth-friendly deeds to do offline

Recycling is a great way to start aiding the earth. In many cases, it takes less energy to produce recycled products than it does to make new ones. Less energy used means fewer carbon-dioxide emissions. (Electricity is often produced by burning fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide into the air.)

There are other things you can do to help, too. Turning down the heat or air conditioning at night saves energy. Turning off the faucet when you brush your teeth saves clean water (it takes energy to make dirty water clean again). And planting a tree in your backyard will help take CO2 out of the air because trees absorb this gas. (Trees also produce oxygen, which we all need to breathe.)

Mr. Wells's class had a chart where students marked their "good green deeds" such as taking shorter showers, carpooling, or walking instead of riding in a car.

The class also started a recycling program. Last year the students collected between 600 and 800 pounds of paper every week and between 300 and 400 bottles and cans.

The sky is the limit. You can think of your own ways to save electricity and decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"It's really simple," Jamie says. "Kids can reduce, reuse, and recycle. They can start their own environmental program. They can start a club to write letters to the president about the environment."

He suggests that kids start talking to people about global warming. "I think kids would have some pretty good ideas," he says.

•Make a difference

Kids should understand the effect they can have on the world. "Having kids realize that speaking up for things they care about is important," Mr. Wells says. "Kids should feel that power and know they're allowed to have that voice in [a] democracy."

In April, more than 100 kids from the Park School, including half of Mr. Wells's class, attended a rally to ask the US Congress to do more to cut the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"Global warming isn't going to affect just the grown-ups; it's going to affect everyone," Jaime says. "Kids live in this world, too. We should have the right to speak up."

Dr. Purdy from the Earth Observatory says that one important thing students can do to help slow climate change is to alter the way their families think about it.

"Society is able to change its ways, and kids can really impact their parents and really impact their families," he says. You can help your family learn about the environment by telling them what you have learned.

Why not start now with small things and encourage both adults and other kids to do them, too? Little by little, you can do more to fight global warming and be a positive force for change. See next Tuesday's Kidspace for more ideas.