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Daycares Going Green

Discuss with your group: Helping childcare centers go organic and become more environmentally friendly. From KIWI’s August/September 2010 issue.

More than 11 million children under age 5 in this country go to daycare or preschool. Are they getting the healthy environment they deserve? KIWI writer Lora Shinn caught up with five daycares that are leading the way to a new era of greener early education. Here’s what one center is doing:

Sprouts, in Norcross, Georgia is a leader in teaching eco lessons. Kids are never too little to learn to appreciate the environment, Sprouts’ founders believe. But raising eco-minded children isn’t about a lesson here and a field trip there: Eco principles must be integrated—gently!—into everyday activities.

So, at Sprouts, children might sing a song about butterflies, then craft butterflies from sustainable materials. They’ll discuss colors, habitat, and how butterflies can help the planet (pollination).

Other regular activities lend themselves to eco-fun lessons: Organic produce is delivered by local farms, and toddlers identify each item and help wash off the fruits and veggies. “If they’re not physically helping, then we’re talking to them about what we’re doing,” says Laura Laszlo, one of Sprouts’ founders. Toddlers and preschool-age kids “feed” leftovers to the compost bin’s worms. Each child manages a zone of the organic garden and gets to experience the entire food cycle. Kids even water their crops with captured rainwater.

Laszlo believes that eco-healthy childcare helps raise kids who will do more to protect the planet. “We’re changing the lifestyle of a complete generation, which may help undo the damage done by previous generations,” she says.

Learn about daycares who are serving organic meals, creating nontoxic play spaces, saving energy, and helping families make healthy choices by purchasing KIWI’s digital edition.