3rd January the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development

The International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development is an idea too big and all-encompassing for the young students I teach, but the idea of volunteering or helping others is not. 

Below are some books that I would consider using over the year to talk about community, our role in community and what people do to help their community.

•  I Am We; A Book of Community  by Susan Verde & Peter Reynolds

•  It's Our Business to Make a Better World by Rebecca Hui & Anneli Bray

•  How to Make a Better World  by Kelly Swift & Jamie Margolin

• It Takes a Village  by Hillary Rodham Clinton & Marla Frazee

• Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena & Christian Robinson

• We'll Make Things Better  by Ben Gundersheimer & Dow Phumiruk

• Red Knit Cap Girl and the Reading Tree by Naoko Stoop

• Our Little Kitchen  by Jillian Tamaki

• Hey, Wall by Susan Verde & John Parra

•  Follow the Moon  by Philippe Cousteau, Deborah Hopkinson & Meilo So

These biographies introduce real people who definitely did volunteer for sustainable development:

• Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighbourhood  by Isabel Campoy & Rafael Lopez

• Food for Hope by Jeff Gottesfeld & Michelle Laurentia Agatha

• The Mangrove Tree  by Susan L. Roth & Cindy Trumbore

• Listen to the Wind  by Greg Mortensen & Susan L. Roth

• 111 Trees  by Rina Singh & Marianne Ferrer

• I Am Farmer  by Baptiste and Miranda Paul & Elizabeth Zunon

• Jose Feeds the World  by David Unger & Marta Alvarez Miguens

•  A Plate of Hope by Erin Frankel & Paola Escobar

While providing links for these books so that you can read the blurbs, I saw how expensive some of these books have become if you are shopping in Australia, but except for the last two these are not new books, we have them in our school library and you may well find them in your library.

Lots of Australian books could also be used for this topic and a good one to start with would be a book by Bob Graham, A Bus Called Heaven.

18th March Global Recycling Day

Global Recycling Day, celebrated on March 18 every year, is a recycling initiative that encourages us to look at our garbage in a new light. There are several ways to recycle that allow some materials to be reused multiple times.

The yearly celebration is all about getting people to waste as little as possible, reuse whenever possible, and encouraging world leaders to work together to recycle more.

The Global Recycling Foundation, which organises the annual day, says recycling is so important because it stops 700 million of tonnes of carbon emissions each year. 

Polly Faber's new book arrives just in time!

But, there is an abundance of books on this topic, both informative texts and imaginative. Stories include themes of recycling clothes, recycling toys, making things from rubbish...

Do you know Maryann Hoberman's poem 

I Like Old Clothes  by Maryann Hoberman and Patrice Barton is an exuberant celebration of hand-me-down clothes-is just as relevant and accessible today as it was over 30 years ago. The resourceful protagonist  likes old clothes for their "history" and "mystery."

Artists started recycling materials in the early 1900s. Read Found  by Liza Holzl for some really good ideas for what you can make with found objects.

Pablo Picasso used cardboard instead of paint. Marcel Duchamp called a bicycle wheel art and Raoul Hausemann made a sculpture out of an old shopkeeper’s dummy. Instead of using traditional materials such as paint, more and more artists started using found materials like newspapers, old photographs and bits of furniture. And they are still doing it today. Find out how these artists, using found materials, changed the art world. Be inspired to create your own masterpieces!

Rubbish? Don't Throw it Away  by Linda Newbery and Katie Rewse is a lively picture book that shows very young children that recycling can be fun! From pine cones on the grass to old coat- hangers in the cupboard, from empty cardboard boxes to unwanted curtains, used wrapping paper, yogurt pots, odd socks, sinks and fallen leaves What can we do with all this stuff that nobody wants?

What do you do when you grow out of something?

The Red Bicycle  by Jude Isabella and Simone Shin makes the main character  a bicycle that starts its life like so many bicycles in North America, being owned and ridden by a young boy. The boy, Leo, treasures his bicycle so much he gives it a name --- Big Red, but eventually Leo outgrows Big Red, and this is where the bicycle's story takes a turn from the everyday, because Leo decides to donate it to an organization that ships bicycles to Africa. Big Red is sent to Burkina Faso, in West Africa, where it finds a home with Alisetta, who uses it to gain quicker access to her family's sorghum field and to the market. Then, over time, it finds its way to a young woman named Haridata, who has a new purpose for the bicycle --- renamed Le Grand Rouge --- delivering medications and bringing sick people to the hospital.

Are there whole community initiatives?

One Plastic Bag  by Miranda Paul and Elizabeth Zunon tells how in Njau, Gambia one woman solves the problem of plastic bags littering the roads by recycling them.

 Zero Waste  by Allan Drummond highlights a community in Japan that has almost achieved zero waste. Kamikatsu, Japan, is known worldwide for its sanitation innovations. This small community of 1,700 people is leading the way in recycling and upcycling.

These books are a good start to a week of reading about recycling. Look here for more books you will find in the library.

Just for fun, read

Milk and Juice: a Recycling Romance  by Meredith Crandall Brown Once upon a time, in a refrigerator not too far away, a jug of milk and a bottle of juice fell in love. All was bliss until Juice was taken away from its one true love and . . . recycled.

8th June World Oceans Day

'The ocean covers over 70% of the planet. It is our life source, supporting humanity’s sustenance and that of every other organism on earth.

The ocean produces at least 50% of the planet’s oxygen, it is home to most of earth’s biodiversity, and is the main source of protein for more than a billion people around the world. Not to mention, the ocean is key to our economy with an estimated 40 million people being employed by ocean-based industries by 2030. 

Oceans absorb about 30% of carbon dioxide produced by humans, buffering the impacts of global warming.

Even though there are all of these benefits, the ocean is now in need of support.

With 90% of big fish populations depleted, and 50% of coral reefs destroyed, we are taking more from the ocean than can be replenished. We need to work together to create a new balance with the ocean that no longer depletes its bounty but instead restores its vibrancy and brings it new life.'

These are the opening paragraphs at the United Nations World Oceans Day site.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society is holding a Giving Day to help ensure we are all aware of what is happening to our oceans. 

'Our oceans face more threats today than at any time in the past. The health of Australia’s oceans lies in our hands, in our actions and in our decisions.'

It is hard to miss this fact when you peruse the number of picture books that have been published in recent years about oceans and garbage, oceans and pollution such as oil spills, and about oceans as  ecosystems.

Unlike Mountain Day or River Day, other international days highlighted by the UN, this day covers so much more and it is hard to choose what to focus on. At the age that my students are at, they worry most about the animals that live in the sea and the beaches because that is what they experience regularly. 

Some students in Year 2  get very preoccupied with the difference between an ocean and a sea. This probably occurs because Australia is an island and when they are leaning about its geography they notice the number of oceans and seas listed on the map...Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, Arctic Sea, Arafura Sea, Timor Sea, Tasman Sea, Coral Sea! Australia does certainly need to be concerned about the oceans and seas around it.

Many of the picture books my students read originate in Britain or America so they read about other oceans and seas as well. When they read Caryl Hart and Beth Woollvin's Meet the Oceans, a fun, colourful, rhyming book which allows for a submarine expedition through the oceans. This picture book makes an ideal introduction to the importance of caring for the ocean. Then once you have initiated a discussion you can almost pick up any ocean book to share.

Here's some more recent ones from the school library.

Over and Under the Waves  (2022) by Kate Messner and Christopher Silas Neal

A Turtle's View of the Ocean Blue  (2021)  by Catherine Barr and Brendan Kearney

Earth's Incredible Oceans  (2021) by Jess French and Claire McElfatrick

Save the Seas (2022) by Liz Gogerly and Sr Sanchez

The Big Book of Blue (2018) by Yuval Zommer (not new, but amazing)

Do You Love Oceans? (2023) by Matt Robertson

I Love You, Blue by Barroux

Ocean! Waves For All by Stacy McAnulty and David Litchfield

For primary school students the series Protecting the Oceans  (2021) by Natalie Hyde would be a good starting place.

For more books see lists on Pinterest UN-SDG 14 Life Below Water; Under the Sea.

31st December United nations Sustainable Development Goals

As this year draws to an end and our lives are still dominated by the Covid pandemic, it is easy to think about how restricted our lives have become, but while I have had time at home I have researched the Sustainable Development Goals as a way of putting together a book club/wide reading list for my young students to explore during 2022 and I have realised that my life is just fine. Acting on these goals is even more important than ever if the world is is to recover from the pandemic.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognise that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection. More importantly than ever, the goals provide a critical framework for COVID-19 recovery.

What are the goals?

What do I plan to do?

I plan to do what many other schools and teachers have already done and use picture books and reading as a means to create discussion of the goals. As my students are young, under eight years old, I plan to do this with the aid of adults, either the students' teacher or a parent. The parents can borrow from our school library and many of the teachers already ensure that sustainability is a perspective when planning units of inquiry. I have combed through the catalogue looking for suitable books for each of the goals and I will affix a sticker to the book with the icon of the apt goal. I have put together a booklet that will serve as a reading record and then it is 'Let's read and discuss 17 books'.  It could be a book a week, a book a fortnight or as the UN SDG Book Club suggests one a month.

The SDG Book Club aims to use books as a tool to encourage children ages 6-12 to interact with the principles of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through a curated reading list of books from around the world.

I will share my booklists with you over the next 17 days, so that you too can use these books to start something similar with your students.

3rd July International Plastic Bag Free Day

Today needs to be a  Plastic Bag Free Day! My local council has designated the whole of July as a plastic free time in order to make each of us contemplate what plastic bags do to our environment.International Plastic 

This most popular of disposable carrying devices that  we pick up from retailers are used for an incredibly short time, usually under 25 minutes, and are then disposed of. They may pass out of our thinking then, but they do not pass out of our world. Plastic bags remain in the world for anywhere from 100-500 years before finally decaying completely, and have a profound impact upon our environment as a result.

Out in the great reaches of the ocean are massive reefs made up of all sorts of plastic waste, and plastic bags play heavily among them. Such is the magnitude of the problem that these great floating islands reach hundreds of miles, like great monuments to mankind’s wastefulness, and disregard for the world upon which we live. International Plastic Bag Free Day gives us an opportunity to remind ourselves, and others, that every action we take, and every bag we dispose of, effects the lives of everyone in the world for generations to come.

I find that the children I teach are very aware of plastic in the oceans, but not so aware of its ramifications elsewhere such as in landfill. Luckily there are some wonderful picture books that can be used to start any discussion on what happens to plastic when it is not disposed of responsibly. 

See:
• One Plastic Bag  by Miranda Paul and Elizabeth Zunon tells the story of Isatou Ceesaya, a Gambian woman, 
 who came up with a way to recycle the plastic bags that had littered the landscape in her nation, an act that saved the environment and transformed her community.

• Bag in the Wind by Ted Kooser and Barry Root. This story follows a plastic bag on its  journey from a landfill into a series of townspeople's lives. One cold morning in early spring, a bulldozer pushes a pile of garbage around a landfill and uncovers an empty plastic bag a perfectly good bag, the colour of the skin of a yellow onion, with two holes for handles that someone has thrown away. Just then, a puff of wind lifts the rolling, flapping bag over a chain-link fence and into the lives of several townsfolk a can-collecting girl, a homeless man, a store owner not that all of them notice.

• Theo and the Giant Plastic Ball  by The United Nations Environment Program and Adrienne Kennaway tells of Theo and his quest to improve at football by making a ball out of discarded plastic bags. This then leads to clearing up his local environment and the realisation that by the community working together they could maintain a cleaner, more healthy environment.

• Plastic Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by Patricia Newman and Anne Crawley tells of a team of scientists who explore the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where millions of pieces of plastic have gathered, having drifted there from rivers, beaches, and ocean traffic all over the world.

• The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle by Alison Inches and Pete Whitehead is the diary of a plastic bottle. It goes on a journey from the refinery plant, to the manufacturing line, to the store shelf, to a garbage can, and finally to a recycling plant where it emerges into its new life...as a fleece jacket!