Tonight I watched a very interesting documentary called No Impact Man. The basic synopsis is that a family of 3, (father, mother, small daughter) take on an experiment to live with no environmental impact for one year. How they achieved this was to shut off electricity, traveled only by bike or foot, ate only locally produced food and going vegetarian, generating NO trash (no toilet paper!!) ,not using any sort of chemicals like laundry detergent or soap and not purchasing anything new.
http://noimpactproject.org/
While parts of it seemed incredibly hard to imagine in this day and age, other parts just seemed to make so much sense. I was curious to see what my ecological footprint was, so I took this quiz to find out. http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/
My results were more embarrassing than I would hope. If everyone lived like me, it would take 5.2 earths to sustain life. For my family alone, it takes 23 acres. There are a few simple things that I could do to change this. Cutting back my animal product intake and purchasing things made from recycled goods are just two ways. That would take switching around of food items and recipes and trying new things, but I am up for a challenge. I have decided to incorporate more veggie meals into our diet, so I am now on the lookout for inspiration.
On another note, this week's learning theme is Oceans. We will be learning about the oceans of the world and it's marine life. I hope to go to the library and check out some books, one being "The Rainbow Fish" since Sam spent most of the weekend pretending to be a rainbow trout (i dont know.. really) in his new pool.. :) It is one of my favorite children's books.
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