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The Environmental Literacy Council (ELC) is an independent, nonprofit organization made up of scientists, economists and educators striving to connect teachers and students to science-based information on environmental issues. ELC's website offers more than 1,000 pages of background information and resources on environmental topics-Air & Climate, Land, Water, Ecosystems, Energy, Food, Environment & Society-along with curricular materials.

Incorporating climate change and environmental education, including education on disaster-risk reduction, into a child-friendly education curriculum ensures the realization of children's environmental rights as enshrined in many articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Our food system is broken. Some people don't have enough food, while others are eating too much. There's only one way to fix this problem and it starts with you and me. Food Tank: The Food Think Tank is for the 7 billion people who have to eat every day. We will offer solutions and environmentally sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity, and poverty by creating a network of connections and information for us to consume and share. Food Tank is for farmers and producers, policy makers and government leaders, researchers and scientists, academics and journalists, and the funding and donor communities to collaborate on providing sustainable solutions for our most pressing environmental and social problems.

This website is devoted to educating children on different environmental issues through homework help, environmental news, games and activities, contests, discussion forums, and opportunities to take environmental action in your community. The website also offers teachers information through an interactive portion of the website called the "teacher's lounge."

Harlow, Rosie, and Sally Morgan. Young Discoverers: Garbage and Recycling (Environmental Facts and Experiments). Boston, MA: Kingfisher Books, 2001. Age Range: 5 - 8 years old Publisher's Description: Explaining the difference between biodegradable and non-biodegradable garbage, this book shows how glass, metal, and wool can be easily recycled. How Can I Help? boxes give suggestions for the young environmentalist who wants to recycle at home.

Rohmer, Harriet. Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People who are Helping to Protect Our Planet. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2009. Age Range: 9 and up Publisher's Description: Rather than featuring the usual roundup of environmental heroes, this title spotlights 12 contemporary conservationists who are working to fight pollution in cities, oceans, and wetlands, from Alaska to Mexico City. Many of the featured activists are young people. At age 11, Alex Lin started a campaign in Rhode Island for the safe disposal of electronic waste ("Today's technology should not become tomorrow's toxic trash"). Erica Fernandez, a teenage Mexican immigrant in California, led a successful fight to prevent a pipeline that would transport highly explosive gas through her neighborhood. Julia Bonds, a coal-miner's daughter in Appalachia, is working to replace coal with wind power. The book's format is lackluster, but the black-and-white photos do show the individuals at work in their communities. The powerful mix of personal stories with crucial environmental and social issues will be a call to action for young readers, who will want to move on to the final section: "How You Can Get Involved."

The GoodPlanet Foundation's mission is to raise awareness and educate the general public about environmental protection. It encourages us to adopt a way of life that is more respectful of the Earth and its inhabitants. It offers realistic and optimistic solutions, and encourages each individual to take action for the planet using a series of programs in order to "bring ecology to the forefront of awareness".

Age Range: 5 and up Fascinating and unique, Wonderful Houses Around the World gives children a welcome entrée into other places and other lives throughout the world. Glorious two-page photographic spreads capture families outside their homes, be they simple or imposing. Detailed cutaway illustrations reveal the inside of each house, showing the various family members engaged in typical daily activities. Captions explain where each house is located, the environmental conditions that affect the house design, how the family lives in the home, and their possessions - all providing interesting glimpses of life in other cultures. The ten houses profiled include a red mud dwelling with thatched towers in Togo, a yurt in Mongolia, a steep-roofed, shake-covered house in Transylvania, and a large donut-shaped communal building for 300 in China. This book increases children's wonder about and cultural awareness of the many different people and ways of life around the world.

Ideas to take action about a variety of environmental issues.

Glaser, Linda. Our Big Home. Minneapolis, MN: Millbrook Press, 2000. Age Range: 5 and up Publisher's Description: A joyful celebration of the Earth with the important environmental message that we share the planet not only with all the various people of the world, but with the plant and animal worlds as well. The loosely rhymed poem describes water, sun, soil, air, wind, sky, night, and moon and serves as a breezy introduction to ecological interdependence. Kleven's colorful artwork is full of subtle detail and depicts children and adults playing, dancing, relaxing, and working all over the world-from the African plain to a Caribbean island to a South American mountain. The artist uses an effective mix of media, from collage to chalk, to portray depth of scenes and vibrancy of detail. A lively look at "-our big blue-green, growing-sun-warmed-life-giving-precious living home."

Cherry, Lynne. A River Ran Wild. San Diego, CA: Voyager Books, 2002. Age Range: 6 - 9 years Publisher's Description: In the 15th century, when native people first settled on the banks of the river now called the Nashua, it was a fertile and beautiful place. By the 1960s, the river valley had been ravaged by many years of serious pollution , and fish, birds, and other animals were no longer seen in the area. Through the efforts of Marion Stoddart and the Nashua River Watershed Association, laws were passed that resulted in the restoration of this river and the protection of all rivers. The author gets high marks for documenting the negative impact of industry on the environment and for highlighting the difference one determined person can make. However, young readers lacking historical background need more facts and dates than are included here. Cherry uses borders on pages that detail, for example, some of the inventions conceived in the 19th century; inexplicably, most are labeled but only some are dated. Her note and the maps on the endpapers, which include a timeline, also help to place the events in context. The watercolor and colored-pencil illustrations are sweeping in their subject matter and adequately convey the physical deterioration of the watershed. However, one picture is misleading; although all the animals depicted live in this habitat, they would not all be seen together. The current concern over the environment will make this a sought-after title, since it is brief enough to read aloud to groups of children. With assistance from informed adult readers, it makes an important contribution to literature on water pollution.

Cherry, Lynne. The Great Kapok Tree. San Diego, CA: Voyager Books, 2000. Age Range: 4 - 8 years Publisher's Description: If a tree falls in the forest... someone or something will always be there to hear it. Many, many creatures will feel the effects when their source of sustenance and shelter falls to the earth. So when a man is sent into the Amazon rain forest one day, under instructions to chop down a great kapok tree, many eyes watch him nervously. It's not long before he grows tired, though, and the "heat and hum" of the rain forest lulls him to sleep. One by one, snakes, bees, monkeys, birds, frogs, and even a jaguar emerge from the jungle canopy to plead with the sleeping ax-man to spare their home. When the man awakens, startled at all the rare and marvelous animals surrounding him, he picks up his ax as if to begin chopping again, then drops it and walks away, presumably never to return. Unfortunately, there's always someone else who is willing to take his place, but the message of this environmental book is plain: Save the rain forest! The story itself is not overly compelling, but each personalized entreaty from the animals provides an accurate and persuasive scientific argument for preserving nature's gifts. Lynne Cherry's fertile watercolor and colored-pencil illustrations, including a map of the tropical rain forests of the world, are vivid and colorful. A fine starting point for a discussion about conservation.

Inches, Alison. I Can Save the Ocean!: The Little Green Monster Cleans Up the Beach. New York, NY: Little Simon, 2010. Age Range: 4 and up Publisher's Description: Max the Little Green Monster loves the beach, but after a picnic on the shore, he leaves behind a big mess to go scuba diving. Max meets lots of new ocean-swimming friends and, along the way, learns how his littering may have harmed the beautiful ocean. He goes on a quest to clean and protect the beach, and finds out what it means to be environmentally green. Printed with vegetable ink on recycled paper, I Can Save the Ocean! includes tips for kids on what they can do to lead greener lives.

Weiss, Elke. Hannah and the Talking Tree. Vancouver, BC: Free Focus Publishing, 2010. Age Range: 5 and up Publisher's Description: 'Hannah and the Talking Tree' is a children s book specially designed to plant the seeds of environmental activism in the next generation. Printed on recycled paper. Gold Medal winner of the 2010 Moonbeam Children's Book Awards. Hannah is a little girl with a special and unique gift. She has very, very big ears which enable her to hear things in the world all around her that other people do not notice. She can hear the grass grow, the wind sing, and the ants march one by one. She can hear birds chirping far away and even hear the trees drinking water. Unfortunately, she is teased and criticized by other children and runs away to be alone. With her extra special powers she finds and befriends a very special and solitary tree and learns about the tragic fate of the trees around her. And now the last tree is threatened as well. Is there any way to save the lone tree from destruction? Will anyone listen to Hannah's cry for help? Instead of just giving up and letting the last tree get cut down, Hannah decides to be brave and do something herself to help save the last tree and create a world worthwhile living in.

Herzog, Brad. S is for Save the Planet: A How-to-Be-Green Alphabet. Farmington Hills, MI: Sleeping Bear Press, 2009. Age Range: 6 and up Publisher's Description: This alphabet title aims to raise awareness of diverse environmental issues and offer conservation tips. Each letter's topic is introduced in two rhyming stanzas ("B is for bright idea-/ a bulb that lasts much longer"), while sidebars of small, dense text, geared toward older readers, detail-related information (an overview of compact fluorescent and incandescent lights, for example) and provide context for each issue's importance. Included throughout are suggestions and practical steps that kids and adults can take to help make a difference. The colorful, realistic illustrations depict children in everyday settings engaged in green activities, such as clearing litter. The rhymes occasionally feel forced, and an index to help guide readers to specific information would have been welcome. Nonetheless, from A ("Appreciation for our planet") to Z ("zero carbon footprint"), each letter introduces concepts that will inspire thought and action, beyond the familiar Rs of reusing, reducing, and recycling.

Rockliff, Mara. Get Real: What Kind of World are YOU Buying? Philadelphia, PA: Running Press Kids, 2010. Age Range: 10 and up Publisher's Description: Rockliff outlines how mass consumerism is harming our planet, and specifically how teens can use their purchasing power to enact change. She cites examples of products that teens use frequently (high-tech electronics, clothing, junk food, etc.) and explains how their production often harms the people who make them, the environment, and, potentially, the end consumer. She explains that a chocolate bar was most likely made with cacao beans harvested by exploited workers, and that a cell phone contains enough heavy metals to seriously harm our groundwater. She covers (un)fair labor practices, environmental pillaging, factory farming, excessive marketing, local vs. corporate stores, and the pervasive throwaway mentality that drives the whole cycle. The author's in-your-face approach makes her points while still engaging readers-she is never didactic or overbearing. She encourages teens to make a difference in their world by making small changes to things they do already-buying fair-trade chocolate or saving up for an organic cotton T-shirt. The pop-art illustrations are clever and illustrative of many points. The impressive bibliography provides lists of documentaries, websites, books, articles, and other sources to help teens find out how their favorite products came to be (and came to be so cheap). Learning more about how these products are made just might make some teens think twice about their buying habits.

In 2013, Green In Action Awards will be granted to inspiring projects based on GEF's sustainability themes. Winners are those schools, classrooms or youth groups who have demonstrated their commitment, creativity, or passion for sustainability in their application. Great application materials include photos, videos, essays, or artwork describing your environmental project, weigh-in, activity, community service project, or green team program! There are so many ways to participate and make a difference so show us how YOU are a champion for sustainability!

Children's needs and rights are interdependent to sustainable development. This is the central argument for a new report from UNICEF, "Sustainable Development Starts and Ends With Safe, Healthy, and Well-Educated Children," which makes the case for purposefully considering children in the post-2015 development agenda in which sustainable development is a core tenet. Divided into three parts, the report first provides the context: how and why children are central to the concept, principles and future progress of sustainable development, and why sustainable development is essential for children and their future. The second part conveys three key messages for those involved in deciding upon the Post-2015 Development agenda. Subsequently, the third and final part of the report provides supporting evidence and recommendations on how children's rights and well-being can be integrated within future development goals. The three key messages that the report highlights for decision-makers to actively consider are: 1. Sustainable Development starts with safe, healthy, and well-educated children 2. Safe and sustainable societies are, in turn, essential for children 3. Children's voices, choices, and participation are critical for the sustainable future we want. Sustainable development is an integrated approach that considers the complex societal, economic, environmental, and governance challenges that directly impact the lives of the world's children. According to the report, which is described as a "call to action," the Post-2015 Development Agenda is a unique opportunity to aspire to a world truly "fit for children."

Goodman, Polly. Coasts: Earth in Danger. London, England: Hodder Wayland, 2001. Age Range: 7 and up Publisher's Description: Most of the Earth's people live near coasts. Many animals and plants also make their homes here. This book tells you how coasts can be damaged or protected. It also helps you to find out how pollution and tourism are changing coastal life.

Burns, Loree Griffin. "The Garbage Patch." In Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007. Age Range: 10 and up Publisher's Description: Aided by an army of beachcombers, oceanographer Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer tracks trash in the name of science. From sneakers to hockey gloves, Curt monitors the watery fate of human-made cargo that has spilled into the ocean. The information he collects is much more than casual news; it is important scientific data. And with careful analysis, Curt, along with a community of scientists, friends, and beachcombers alike, is using his data to understand and protect our ocean.