Hey all! I was recently reading an article published by the National Ad Council that said that kids are getting about 50% less time today outside than they did 20 years ago.

This statistic surprised me, so I have been recently trying to get my kids outdoors more often, engaging in outside activities. My reasoning is that the more time kids spend outdoors the more green their decisions will be in protecting the environment.

The Forest Service has a good campaign going on right now entitled "Where the Other You Lives" which is an initiative designed to get parents and kids outdoors. Here's their website:

National Forest Service

For health reasons, kids AND adults should get at least 1/2 of sun a day for natural vitamin D, that's before 11am and after 4pm.

I recently had mine tested, and my levels were low. Very dangerous for catching flu's, even cancers.

The Forest Service in conjunction with my job(I work for a marketing company) recently added a sweepstakes to their "where the Other You Lives" campaign.

The campaign is designed to provide an award for those parents and their kids who spent time outdoors.

Check the site here

The children in Petaluma will be able to see more honey bees in their family gardens thanks to all but one of the City Council. Last night they agreed on wording for the ordinance allowing hives in the city limits. It will be approved at the next meeting. Mr. Glass does not understand how safe and important bees in the city are. He needs to come out to Peterson's Farm and see for himself! Look at Link to see children with bees.

quote:

Originally posted by Ettamarie Peterson:
The children in Petaluma will be able to see more honey bees in their family gardens thanks to all but one of the City Council. Last night they agreed on wording for the ordinance allowing hives in the city limits. It will be approved at the next meeting. Mr. Glass does not understand how safe and important bees in the city are. He needs to come out to Peterson's Farm and see for himself! Look at Link to see children with bees.

This is a sight that may help Mr. Glass:
Link

The Hive:
Link

The importance of Bees:
Link

Thank you for caring about the bees. I hope Mr. Glass wakes up to the facts!

quote:

Originally posted by Ettamarie Peterson:
Thank you for caring about the bees. I hope Mr. Glass wakes up to the facts!

Yay for bees. Someone is coming from your farm (Peterson's) to show the bees to my daughter's preschool. So cool. Plus bees really help the community gardens that are propagating around Petaluma. Now the illegal neighborhood bees that have been taking care of our garden can be "legal."

Support our local agriculture. I am very proud of my mother and father's efforts to educate all generations on the importance of substainable agricultural, including bees. The bee population is very important. Come out to the Peterson's pumpkin farm and thank the bees because we would not have produce without them. Link

quote:

Originally posted by Karen Nau:
Support our local agriculture. I am very proud of my mother and father's efforts to educate all generations on the importance of substainable agricultural, including bees. The bee population is very important. Come out to the Peterson's pumpkin farm and thank the bees because we would not have produce without them. Link

Karen, We took our 3 year old grandaughter to your parents and she loved it, thanks to your parents. We teach her all animals need to be cared for and should not be hurt or kill unless in self defense or they are mortily wounded. We feel that is how they should be educated by schools/groups. Do you agree?

I am glad you found the farm and my tour educational. It is your right to avoid telling the children how meat gets to the table. Most school curriculums and our farm curriculum do not go into these details but if a child were to ask me, is it right to deny telling the student the truth? At some point in a person's life, he will decide to eat meat or be a vegetarian. It is a parent's job to guide those decisions however they choose. Getting upset that the schools or other people tell the other side of the story is not allowing the child to see the whole picture. This subject is like sex education, there is an age when the child is old enough to hear about it (I would guess most children do not ever hear about animal slaughtering in school). That age is not the same for every child. These are very touchy subjects as we all know. Karen and I agree on these points. We will never teach a young child something there is no need to know about. Teaching kindness to animals is very basic and should start as soon as the child encounters an animal. For example, "Pet the kitty gently." For that matter teaching children to accept that every person is different and some people are not vegans nor vegetarians. It is best to teach tolerance.