At the San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum we love learning about new cultures from around the world and today we are going to celebrate our planet, Mother Earth and learn about some young friends who are helping to make our world a better, cleaner, and healthier place for all of us to live in. On Earth Day we honor and appreciate the place we live. Think about your favorite place to visit. Is it the beach, the mountains, the forests, the desserts? What is your favorite type of flower or plant? A palm tree, a rose bush, a strawberry plant? Now think about how trash and pollution would affect those things. Would the beach be fun to go to if the water was dirty and the sand had trash all over it? How would plants grow if the soil was not healthy or the air was not clean? Keeping our world clean, safe, and healthy is important not just for us as humans, but also for the plants and animals around us.

Young people around the world are committed to making the world a better place to live. These young environmental activists were inspired to find solutions that helped clean up their neighborhoods. Kauã Rodolfo is from Brazil and wanted to help save the Amazon rainforest. He started by planting trees in the rainforest and then joined Plant-for-the-Planet, which has planted more than 1 million trees around the world. Haaziq Kaziis from India and noticed that the animals in the oceans were being harmed by the trash that was floating in the oceans. He created a device that could help clean the trash in the oceans. Genesis Butler is from California. She learned that eating more plant based foods like fruits and veggies is better for the environment. She encourages everyone to change the way they eat to better protect the Earth.

In many places around the world, artists are making art from recycled, upcycled, and repurposed materials. There are large elephant sculptures made from reused tires, flowers made from plastic bottles, and grasshoppers made from repurposed metal gardening tools.

For today’s art activity we are inspired by Alice Imbastari from Italy. She would look out her school window and see trash on the streets and on the beach. She started safely picking up the trash and used her creativity to create art and crafty pieces from the trash.