Amongst the many things I have learned as a parent are that children’s museums are actually quite different from each other. My son has enjoyed the different experiences they offer. We recently took him to the Delaware Children’s Museum, where he played for hours. I had plenty of time to look around the place (that is, when I wasn’t extracting him from the kid size climbing ropes structure in the front). To my great surprise, there were sustainability elements beyond the usual recycling bins next to the trash cans.
The most resonant to my son was the ECO House. This section is entirely built from recycled materials. It has lots of examples of items that can be made from the simple act of recycling. These include but are not limited to the plastics, paper, and glass we regularly toss into recycling bin. I remember being particularly impressed by what they did with recycled tires.
ECOConnect also had displays on green power, with information on wind, solar, etc. I think my son took this to heart. Over the next few weeks, he created with his Legos several houses simultaneously powered by wind, the sun, water and the earth. It had a little windmill, a waterwheel, and a roof that he deemed a “sun roof”. He knows better than I do how the earth was powering his house.
It was great to see that the DCM had set up such a display, It really helped put sustainability on a kid level. Now, we are teaching my son about sustainability on a kid-friendly, appreciate nature, be nice to the earth level. In the readily foreseeable future, he will probably be teaching us.
A couple of the other nifty signs:
SustainableWritings 