Today is Earth Day, a “holiday” that’s been on par with Flag Day or Sweetest Day (i.e., you don’t get the day off work, so who really cares?) since it was introduced in 1970. School kids plant trees. We pretend we’re enthusiastic about recycling, feel collectively guilty about how we’re treating dear old Mother Earth, worry about global warming—and then go back to business as usual. But Earth Day is on the brink of becoming positively Halloweenish on the pseudo-holiday popularity scale!
Enter $4-a-gallon gasoline and suddenly, it’s cool to be green—even with gas at “only” $2 a gallon. Green is the new black. Corporations are beating each other black and blue for the chance to stake out green marketing territory. Companies who’ve watched their bottom lines turn red are blue skying about how being green will get them back in the black.
But as Kermit the frog said first and best, it’s not easy being green. We want to be better environmentalists, but many of us just don’t know how.
Enter Michigan 4-H (which has always been green, by the way) with more ways to teach youth (and adults) about environmental stewardship than a tree has leaves! First, you’ve got your Michigan 4-H Youth Conservation Council (M4-HYCC), whose members just happen to be testifying today before the Michigan Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs, just as they have on (or near) Earth Day since 1999. Each year, they choose one environmental issue to research, and they present their findings and recommendations to the senate committee. This year, M4-HYCC members are proposing a statewide wastewater code and improved water quality monitoring for Michigan’s inland lakes and rivers.
What a fish!
Then there’s the 4-H Great Lakes & Natural Resources Camp coming up August 2-8 at Camp Chickagami (doesn’t that name make you want to go on a midnight cabin raid?) in Presque Isle, Michigan. The reason GL&NR Camp just became a National 4-H Program of Distinction and won a Natural Resources Conservation Education Award is because it lets its teen participants learn about environmental issues related to the Great Lakes, conduct experiments and collect data that is really useful for Great Lakes conservation efforts. Most of all, it’s just get-your-hands-dirty fun. My oldest son went a few years ago and couldn’t stop talking about it for a week, especially bragging about the HUGE fish he caught in Lake Huron!
Want more? How about the 4-H Outdoor Adventure Challenge? Or Project FISH? Or REAACT? Or 4-H TRACKERS? All of these programs have room for youth participants and adults volunteers, so if you’re looking for a way to “go green” (yes, even U of M folks are invited to go green), you really don’t need to look any further than Michigan State University Extension 4-H Youth Development.
