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The whole world in their hands By Na'ama Lanski Tags: Environment Ministry  Five-year-old Imri Meroz's father prefers to take out the garbage late at night, when Imri's asleep. Because when Imri's awake, he strictly supervises the garbage collection in the house, lest a single plastic container or egg carton that could be reused or recycled elude him. "It started off quite mildly when one day he politely asked us to save 'junk' for him to bring to preschool," recalls Liron Meroz, Imri's father. "Gradually, the situation grew more complicated and turned into a reign of terror. My wife and I are rebuked when we mistakenly toss out something that could be recycled or reused. We're forbidden from using plastic bags at the supermarket, and every morning we have to bring some of our garbage to the preschool, and it comes back to us later in the form of art projects." At Imri's preschool, Gan Keshet in Mazkeret Batya, there's a huge crate for storing the "junk" used by the kids for various ecological art activities. All the children there know that you always color on both sides of a piece of paper, that it's good to bring in used paper from home and that on the Shavuot holiday this year there was no water celebration because the water needs to be saved for the environment. Irit, Imri's preschool teacher, is actually a bit surprised by how seriously the youngster has embraced the "green" philosophy; the preschool doesn't make a point of defining itself as green. She claims that everything "is just incidental, it's just the way we act as parents and as people who live here." Advertisement So much more could be done, Irit insists. "For example, collecting batteries, going out into nature - which we don't get to do very much - collecting bottles for recycling and using the money to buy toys for the preschool and to spruce up the garden, which we haven't done this year because of the shmita [the preschool has a mixed population of children from secular as well as religious families, who observe the custom of the "sabbatical of the land"]. As I see it, the green content conveyed at our preschool is just the necessary minimum." Like those youngsters, a class of first-graders at the Bartov School in Ra'anana also decided, of their own accord, to forgo the traditional Lag Ba'omer bonfire this year. With their parents' assistance, the six-year-olds wrote a letter that was distributed to all the pupils and teachers in the school, explaining: "The information obtained in recent years by the Environmental Protection Ministry's air-quality monitoring center shows that Lag Ba'omer bonfires cause a sharp increase in the levels of air pollution." The young pupils also explained in their letter that "in our school, we learn the whole year how to preserve our planet Earth and the environment, about the importance of recycling and how pollution can be prevented (we recently received lunchboxes to help avoid unnecessary use of plastic bags). Therefore, this year we will not make a bonfire. We will celebrate Lag Ba'omer with joy and love in our classroom. We will learn about the meaning of the holiday and the origin of its customs, but we will adjust to the reality of our lives, with a commitment to preserve the environment and our health, and to help prevent the warming and pollution of our precious planet." Apparently, these pint-sized agents of change have been hard at work lately all around us. While Knesset legislation on environmental issues continues to lag and local authorities have trouble even providing recycling containers, three-year-olds already know that five trees have to be cut down to manufacture one package of construction paper. At preschool and elementary-school age, they are able to lecture knowledgeably on environmental topics, spicing their remarks with somewhat frightening existential messages, and instructing grown-ups on just how to go about saving the planet from extinction. Sometimes, they get a little confused as they memorize slogans with missionary zeal. Their sources of influence, apart from their families, are varied: after-school activities, summer camps, school and television. Consider, for example, Bob the Builder, the animated British character beloved by the two- to five-year-old demographic. This season, he took time out from repairing his friend Farmer Pickle's silo and from playing pranks on Spud the scarecrow to save Sunflower Valley. He tells his young viewers about the establishment of a new community there that will work in cooperation with nature, and will use "energy from the sun and the wind to reduce the amount of garbage and to conserve energy, to build an ecological house and also recycle all the leftovers, which is really fantastic!" In recent months, the "Hop! For the Environment With Love" campaign (sponsored by the Hop! TV channel for young children) has been going strong, led by the character Doodidoo, who gives viewers advice like, "Plastic really messes up the environment, so it's better to take your sandwich to school in a lunchbox." During the Passover vacation, the channel organized a big event at Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, where children were invited to add their fingerprint-signatures to the station's "green covenant," demanding that people recycle, conserve water, preserve flora and fauna, cut down on the use of plastic bags and recycle bottles. In addition to Bob the Builder, other environmentally oriented children's programming includes "Tiyuliyulim," about environmental preservation, "Hafatzim mitlotzetzim" ("Objects Fooling Around") with artist Hanoch Piven, who demonstrates how to be creative with used objects, and "Koah hamayim" ("The Power of Water"), with droplets named Tif and Taf, who set out on water-conservation missions and say: "Down with wastefulness!" The Knesset and the local authorities aren't the only ones who can take cues from the environmentally conscious tots. Many of the activities aimed at children in preschools and elementary schools are independent initiatives, done without any instruction or support from the Education Ministry. Only lately has the ministry begun to move a little faster in this realm, to take advantage of growing environmental awareness and to provide some guidelines. Sima Hadad, director of the ministry's preschool department, says that the process of certifying "green" preschools began two years ago. In cooperation with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, teachers are asked by the ministry to prepare an annual curriculum on environmental topics, focusing on a specific issue - i.e., green consumption, keeping public spaces clean or noise reduction - and translating this into communal activity. Says Hadad: "We've found that we need to adapt ourselves to what's happening in Israel and all over the world, and we intend to seriously promote the development of this field." However, only about 90 preschools, less than 1 percent of the institutions affiliated with the Education Ministry, have joined the "green preschool" program so far. Environmental studies is not taught separately in the schools, but incorporated into geography and social studies lessons. Dalia Fenig, the national supervisor in charge of these subjects, emphasizes that, "the learning materials shout 'environment.' They are very good and up to date, although there is always room to expand and to strengthen them. There is no reason to create another academic subject just for environmental studies, because there aren't even enough hours for geography. Unfortunately, geography has been taken out of many middle schools, and so they don't speak enough there about the importance of the environment." Zivit Linder, head of the education division of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, says that in the past few years her ministry has been encouraging schools to institute various practices in order to receive a green "seal of approval." Schools that prove their commitment to environmental education, to instituting green methods and involving the community in their environmental activity, earn a grant of NIS 10,000 and receive a certificate from the Environmental Protection and Education Ministries. In the last four years, 140 schools were certified as green - less than 3 percent of all state schools. However, they are quite geographically and socioeconomically diverse. For example, a quarter of the schools that received the certification this year belong to the Arab school system. Family affairs Ibrahim Al-Ghraba, principal of the Al-Nur School in the Bedouin town of Segev Shalom in the Negev, joined the initiative four years ago. "The subject was first taught to the teachers for an entire year," he says, "and only afterward to the students. It was hard because in the Bedouin sector they didn't accept what we were asking for. The parents thought garbage collection, recycling and keeping public spaces clean were all the responsibility of the local authority. For the most part, the Bedouin only worry about their own immediate environment. And you have to remember that the conditions in the Bedouin sector are poor and below the norm to begin with. So we encouraged this by using a lot of educational activities and awarding prizes. For example, classes that excelled in recycling got to go on field trips for free. Now the students are ready to pitch in on projects like cleaning up the Segev Shalom creek and the cemetery, planting and recycling. Environmental education also teaches social justice, which is something that we, as Bedouin, really aspire to." Al-Ghraba says that the school also made an effort to get pupils' mothers to embrace the green lifestyle. For three years, he explains, a group of 20 mothers "who don't often leave the house to do things that are not related to caring for the family" met once a week, and learned about the environment, self-empowerment and self-enrichment. At the end, each was given supplies "including saplings, flowers, watering cans and compost, to nurture a green area next to their homes." Says Gil, who just finished second grade at the Reut School in Gedera, which has received green certification: "A green school is something that's clean. If we see batteries or bottles, we collect them and put them in the recycling bin. They can't be left in the sun. I don't know exactly what happens, but I know that giraffes can choke on plastic if they eat it. They don't know they're not supposed to eat it." What kind of activities did you have at school? Gil: "We have a nature reserve near school that we take care of and we go on hikes there. We look at the flowers and at the little swamp with the little frogs. We also made a bird-feeder for the birds that come to our reserve. It's important to take care of nature and the environment so people will like to live on earth." Noga Horesh, eight and a half and going into fourth grade at the Moshav Bnei Atarot elementary school: "I started getting interested in the environment in our ecological art lessons, when the teacher told us not to throw out packaging, not to burn plastic and I don't remember what else. I made a magnet for the refrigerator out of an empty cornflakes box and a dollhouse for my sister out of old cardboard boxes, instead of just throwing them in the trash. I put all the used bottles in the recycling bin. I told my mom to wrap my sandwiches in paper and not in plastic, and I put leftover bits of fruit into a special bin we have at school for organic garbage." Why is it important to preserve the environment? Noga: "Because there are holes in the earth's ozone layer and it could disappear. The sun has ultraviolet rays and without the ozone layer, the sun would burn us. And one time our teacher also told us that a boy threw a plastic bag in the sea and a dolphin thought it was a jellyfish and ate the bag and died. Because of this, it's important to save bags at home, to use them a few times and then to put them in the recycling bin." Noga's mother says that at home, "we separate the garbage into cardboard, glass and plastic for recycling, and miscellaneous junk for artwork. I think that for my daughters, it's mainly on the level of slogans: We have to preserve the planet, to be careful about the hole in the ozone. The preschool and the school are full of green stickers and slogans, and they're really absorbed by this and now they're getting the whole family into it. Noga scolds her grandparents when she catches them with garbage that hasn't been sorted, and they've promised her that they'll be more careful about it. It's become a part of her life." Anat Horesh, Noga's six-year-old sister, who attended the Hazayit kindergarten in Moshav Rinatya, says: "Our preschool teacher taught us to sort garbage to preserve nature, so I always find interesting things in the garbage. Once I found used food wrappers and my friends and I used them to make a present for our teacher." Do you also hike a lot in nature to get to know it from up close? Anat: "No, we hike a lot in our imagination." Communal gardens The fact that there is relatively little actual contact with nature has provoked criticism of the activity in some educational institutions, and of passive television viewing. One project that began in Jerusalem and spread elsewhere involved the formation of ecological associations of people in various neighborhoods who create communal gardens. One such garden was established in the Maoz Aviv neighborhood of Tel Aviv a year ago. Once a week families come together to tend individual plots there. "It's an opportunity to touch Earth - the source of life," says one of the organizers, Alon Eliran. "To connect to something that is right near you all the time, but that you don't notice. Nurturing the soil makes you care and aware of what's around you, and there's also a social-ecological aspect: an encounter between people and families that's creative and productive rather than being based on consumption." Eight-year-old Boaz convinced his mother to join him working in the communal garden. "At first, the soil was as hard as a rock, but we worked it and we plan to plant corn, sunflowers, cucumbers, melons and watermelons," he explains, pulling a list out of his pocket to make sure he hasn't forgotten anything. Why was it important to join this activity and to take your mother with you? Boaz: "It's only NIS 50 a month and this way we can eat our own fruits and vegetables without paying money. That's what I told my mom. I think it's nice that this gray dirt is being turned into a place that's green and blooming." Shomrei Hagan (Keepers of the Garden), an organization that works to connect kids with nature using methods borrowed from the Native Americans, runs about 40 programs nationwide. "Other activities concerning the environment offer ecological solutions that derive from scientific, analytical thinking, from the head," says founder Yael Israeli. "Through the experience of nature, we want to create an intimacy between the children and the elements of Creation - plants, animals, the earth - so they'll care about preserving them. It's important that we experience ourselves as part of nature. That way, we strengthen environmental consciousness, but not by using scare tactics." She and Ofer Israeli founded the organization eight years ago, after they returned from a long stay in Holland. Ofer had studied at Tom Brown Jr.'s Tracker School (founded by a famed naturalist who learned wilderness survival skills from an Apache elder, Stalking Wolf). The couple's vision was to take the skills they learned and apply them to educational work with children. To this end, they put together a year-long course and have thus far trained 80 instructors. One Shomrei Hagan group meets weekly near the Ramat Hanadiv reserve in Zichron Yaakov; it consists of 15 kids between the ages of five and 10. They have learned to build shelters to protect them from the sun and rain, as well as mud taboun ovens for baking bread; they make wooden eating utensils with a special Indian technique using burning coals. They also learn tracking skills: how to approach animals without frightening them, and how to identify an animal by its dung and or footprints, from which one can surmise the animal's gender, state of health and degree of hunger, and whether it is in danger. At a recent meeting, the children sewed cloaks for themselves, which they painted with camouflage-colored dyes produced from plants, ash and dirt, and put them on so as to get close to animals. Last week, they sat in a forest clearing around a bowl of organic fruit for the mid-morning snack, and their counselors, Keren Spivak and Ori Turk, taught them the proper way to make and use a toilet in nature: "Dig a hole, go poop in it, cover it well and put a stick on top to show that someone from our group pooped there," they told their rapt listeners. Usually, before eating, the children give thanks to Mother Earth for providing us humans with food and with water for fruits and vegetables; for the sun, which cooks food and warms our bodies; and for the air we breathe, which brings clouds and rain. Itamar Doron, eight and a half, from Zichron Yaakov, is in his second year of Shomrei Hagan activities. "I learned to peel bark with a knife," he boasts. "But first I had to prove that I could do it with flint. I learned how to make moccasins, which are Indian shoes made of leather that help you approach animals easily. I learned that as long as you're in nature, nature will give you everything: food, warmth, a place to sleep and shelter. Since I've been a member of Shomrei Hagan, it's been very important to me to take care of nature." Another participant, nine-year-old Eyal from Moshav Sharona in the Lower Galilee, was influenced by his mother, Anat Asia, a practitioner of Chinese medicine and Qi Kong meditation, who is a member of the Shomrei Hagan organization. Eyal dreams of becoming an engineer when he grows up, and of "inventing machines that will prevent the destruction of the planet." In a small notebook, he sketches his inventions. "I'm thinking of inventing a machine that sprays balls that swallow up pollutants like plastic and animal gases, or a plane with a pump that draws pollutants out of the air," he says. Why is it so important to take care of air pollution? Eyal: "Because if we don't, soon there will be no life left on the earth." Summertime ecology During summer vacation - besides the "survivor" camps, the "modeling" camps and the other programs where campers are given their chocolate milk and white-flour rolls - there are also ecological summer camps, geared for elementary-school kids. One of these is held at the Adam and Eve ecological farm near Modi'in. Throughout the year, there are activities there for school groups and families. Founder Itzik Gaziel explains that the farm aims "to reduce the ecological footprint and to develop a caring attitude toward the flora and fauna around us." In its five years of existence, no waste has been removed from the site: All organic garbage produced at the farm is used to fertilize the fruits and vegetables grown there; the inorganic garbage is used for ecological construction and art, such as for making tiles to cover the walls of buildings constructed by the staff from a mixture of clay, mud, sand and water. The sole source of energy is a solar energy system. Rainwater and dew are collected, wastewater is reused and there is composting. Children look after the animal corner, which is populated by unfortunate creatures like an amputee dog and odd-looking chickens that until recently were used for experiments. At the Adam and Eve camp, the kids make a bow and arrow, a teepee and a taboun, prepare potions from organic medicinal plants, and weave things out of fabric remnants. "We explain to them the significance of this kind of lifestyle and how it helps," says counselor Yisrael Shechori. "We're in tune with reality and allow them to take from it what suits them. When I walk with them in nature and a kid throws food on the ground, we stop and talk about what that will do to the environment. The idea is to leave behind your egocentrism and to understand that you are a part of nature and affect it." Another such camp is being held for the third year at the Yevulim communal farm in Kfar Malal. About 30 kids are spending their summer vacation there, preparing food from fruits and vegetables that grow in the garden without any pesticides, cooking in an oven heated solely by the sun's rays, cleaning reusable eating utensils in small bowls of water with organic cleaning materials, building benches out of garbage that's compressed into old tires covered with a mixture of paper and cement, making art projects using all-natural materials - and splashing in a small ecological pool, which has a circulation system that ensures that only a small amount of water is needed to fill it during the day, while in the evening the water is used to water the gardens. The farm was established by agronomists Anat Glantz and Roni Ashur, both 31, who after earning their degrees at the Weizmann Institute, went looking for employment that would combine their agricultural skills with working with children. They thus ended up building this farm in the backyard of Glantz's parents' home. "There is a strong connection between agriculture and our culture," Glantz explains, and a need to "create viable agriculture that doesn't cause resources to dwindle over time. This is expanded into green construction, into energy conservation and waste conservation, and to intelligent consumption in the form of cooperatives: groups of people that get together, purchase food in bulk, divide it up and thereby make significant savings in terms of the number of containers used, which are mostly nonbiodegradable." During the morning sessions, Glantz and Ashur talk with the kids about different ecological principles. Afterward, the youngsters are free to choose from a variety of activities, or to head for the swings or the hammock, or climb trees. Rotem Ashur, 11 and a half, says: "It really scares me that the world could be destroyed because of all the pollution and problems, so I like being here because I know that this way I'm helping the environment. I recycle, I don't waste water. What they told us at school about pollution and the shortage of water really scared me, and when I came home I wrote a letter on the prime minister's Web site, and suggested that the whole world switch to riding bicycles and that factories stop releasing smoke and that they do like my father. He takes the water from the kitchen sink and the shower, and uses it to water the grass. They actually answered me that if the problems continue, they'll ask people to use public transportation, but that didn't make me feel better." "We're not out to scare the children. We want to give them practical solutions," says Glantz. "At this age they soak up the messages without any resistance. We were afraid they'd have a hard time accepting our compost bathrooms, but they were fine. We illustrated the importance of them by having each child mark on a chalkboard the number of times he went to the bathroom in one day. "At the end of the day, we calculated the number of times the kids went and how much water was conserved. Because every time you flush in a regular bathroom, it uses nine liters of water - or, in terms a kid can easily understand, the equivalent of six big water bottles. They were astounded by the magnitude of their contribution to conservation. They're at the age when you can really foster change."W Bookmark to del.icio.us   The bigger apple Study shows Tel Aviv is more expensive to live in than New York. When bedbugs bite After 40 years' absence, Israel braces for return of the bedbug.

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