When I was a child .........? What environmental lessons would you like to teach your great great grandchildren-to-be?

Asker's Rating:

Excellent. Wise advice.

Thank you everybody it has been a delight reading your answers.

Other Answers (21)

• I have not got kids yet, but maybe one day Bella ;) I would like to tell them this:
  
  1. %26quot;I thought about you when I planted all these trees, this edible forest garden and the permanent Permaculture gardens that you living off now%26quot;
  
  2. %26quot;I imagined you and your great, great, granchildren to be, enjoying them, not having to repeat all the effort, the drudgery that we did. I imagined you and your great, great grandchildren and all the generations after them, growing up with trees, having a deep respect for trees and nature%26quot;
  
  3. %26quot;If I can only teach you, my children to be and every generation after you to do one thing it would be to plant trees native to your area, to plant fruit trees and to plant trees for coppicing for you and every generation after%26quot;
• Great great? It%26#039;s all I can do to think about the lessons I want to teach my grandson.
  
  My yard, it appears, is as good a classroom as any. Not a large yard by any standard, nor a small one, it holds mysteries galore for a 3 year old. Right now we%26#039;re just focusing on modeling behavior and explaining my expectations. We do not squish the spider, it is good. Because they eat bugs. Because the birds in grandma%26#039;s yard eat the spiders.
  
  But ultimately, the great lesson for him and his children would be to respect nature, and learn from it. Right now we%26#039;re doing that in baby steps. One day I expect he%26#039;ll know things he doesn%26#039;t realize he knows, and it will affect his live in ways I%26#039;ll never be able to realize, nor will he, not immediately.
  
  The life lessons I learned from my grandparents were subtle but still reverberate today.
  
  Great question.
• In our small rural community, (Northern California) a bunch of us (%26quot;us%26quot; being: parents, would be teachers, and other community members interested in the future of quality rural development) got together and started a public %26quot;charter school%26quot;... Kinder garden through grade 8... . Charter schools differ from ordinary public schools, here in the USA, because they define an educational direction for the school. The one we defined for our school is the first of it%26#039;s kind in our area, it is : environmental studies,connected to personal ethics, and community spirit.
  
  The school teaches children in a hands on way, about animal husbandry, gardening, our connection to the earth, sustainable agriculture, and connects this with high standards of personal responsibility, and service to the community at large.
  
  The kids learn to milk goats, grow tomatoes, feed chickens... they do experiments with things like pasture management, weather watching, water testing, and other cool stuff. The kids there that I talk to, love school... need I say more?
  
  Get together in your community, with like minded people and create an education opportunity like this one for your kids! They will love it too. Them that are doin%26#039; somethin%26#039;.
• When I was a child, actually a young teenager, we would wade in this creek. The bed of the creek was FILLED with a very rare fresh water clam.
  
  Then people %26quot;discovered%26quot; how beautiful Snohomish, WA was. A school, and entire subdivisions were build where the dairy farm use to be.
  
  All of those houses, schools, and churches planted perfect lawns. All of the run-off from those perfect lawns and shrubs traveled down hill to this creekbed, where the rare fresh water clams use to be. In just five short years, after the massive building explosion, the clams were entirely gone.
  
  That%26#039;s one of the reasons we bought the farm up North, close to the Canadian border. It%26#039;s the reason we planted nine THOUSAND native trees along the banks of the two creeks that run through the property, and around the pond. It is also the reason we have continued to purchase every piece of property that touches an edge of the farm that comes up for sale.
  
  We want to continue to be able to protect the wildlife, and the streams, so that YOUR grandchildren will someday have a place to wade, and discover things like freshwater clams.
  
  This is why we farm the land, but use no chemicals, and we put up nest boxes for the wood ducks, and nesting platforms for the blue herons.
  
  We have done this, and cared for the land, so that you would have a safe place to live, grow your food, and raise YOUR family.
  
  Now take me back to our home. It makes me too sad to see a place that was once bursting with life so sterile and dead. By the time we get home, it will be getting on toward evening. Time for the blue heron to fly in for his twighlight fishing on our pond. Don%26#039;t you just love that prehistoric dinosour squak herons have? How many people do you supose have been lucky enough in their life to hear that noise?
  
  (My conversations with my great, great grandchildren would be something like that)
  
  ~Garnet
  Homesteading/Farming over 20 years
• If they survive, I think they will already have learned to respect nature and the planet. The way things are now, with global warming and pollution, we%26#039;ll be lucky if there ARE any future generations that far ahead. Al Gore said it all along, as did many others, but it%26#039;s only now, when we%26#039;re on the brink of extinction, that some people are FINALLY listening.
  
  I think our great great grandchildren will look back at our society and blindness about conservation...and think we%26#039;re all idiots!
• Some nice answers so far. Is this what you%26#039;re looking for? I’m going to take a different tack.
  
  It pains me to speak it, but we must face the truth if we are to find our way through this. Actions speak louder than words. Our lesson will be with them all the days of their lives. I live with this every day when I look into the eyes of my children. My spouse is the optimist; she says they will find their way, just as every generation has done before. I’m not so sure we’ll pull it out this time.
  
  %26quot;If you are reading this, it means you have survived somehow. Don%26#039;t do what we did. But more than that burn into your collective mind the lesson you have been forced to learn by having your future stolen by someone in the past. When the megalomaniacs rear their ugly head again, challenge them. Start and end the war before it%26#039;s too late.%26quot;