Day 5 - ENERGY "...the ability to do work."

Last day was all about ENERGY, where does it come from and how we can use less to help take care of the planet...from how long our showers are, to where we shop, to what kind of food we eat, to how many cars are taken off the road when each house has 1 flourescent light bulb...how much energy is saved, in other words! The campers learned a TON and each day they took actions to help take care of the planet! Well done campers! Thank you for continuing to make a difference each and every day! Enjoy the photos below from the last day!

Our neighbor, Deb Robbins from www.drdandelion.com gave us a tour of her sustainable 'soap factory' and Vanessa is trying to guess which essential oil she is smelling. They smelled several and were able to guess most of them! Deb also showed themsome other ingredients and how she makes the soap too!

We toured the Re-Store to see how things can be re-sold and re-used versus thrown away.

Luckily the Re-Store had a bathroom we could use after taking this picture!

Fouts Park provided a nice place for a picnic and playground fun. We visited 7 parks in 5 days, all by taking SMART trips (www.whatcomsmarttrips.org) walking or riding a bus.

Jada writing down which seeds she wanted to plant!

Julia is planting radish seeds!

Julia and Zoe enjoying popsicles by the 'take action' posters at the end of a very warm and wonderful last day!

Day 4 - WATER The Water Cycle and more!

Vanessa's family garden and happy campers!


Zoe proudly showed us her very own garden!

Ask any girl at our camp about the water cycle and they'll tell you all about evaporation, condensation, precipitation going round and round! We learned different ways to save water and how much of the earth has available water for plants and animal...only 1%! The girls learned how to NOT run the tap to rinse their dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. We took a trek in our neighborhood to continue our search for more city parks to picnic in along with how many houses grow food gardens and chickens. In the 20 blocks we've covered so far, 42 houses are growing food and 2 have chickens. We still have more blocks to see tomorrow.

On our trek we visited my friend Caroline's garden and she showed us what she was growing. Actually Julie knew all of the plants as she is growing them too! Caroline explained how to save water by watering the garden efficiently and also let the girls harvest snap and snow peas along with spinach, chard and chives.
Nasturtiums from Caroline's garden! Yummy!

We enjoyed a glass of sun tea before leaving to visit Vanessa's family garden and Zoe's personal garden. After a picnic lunch (Check out the photos below of the waste free lunches the campers brought today), we came back and enjoyed a storytelling video about Walter the Water Molecule! We were drenched in water facts by the end of the day!

Day 3 - FOOD - Field trip to Fairhaven Farmers Market

City bus ride to Fairhaven. We took 2 there and 2 back and on the way back, both buses had 22 passengers!!!


Julia buying a pretzel bun from Sophia at Ralfs Pretzels. Her produce bag is NOT plastic but made from cloth and can be re-used every time she buys produce or food at the market. Thanks Heather of www.textilesbyheather.com for sewing up the bags! You can make your own produce bags from any extra material around the house.


Jed sells patty pan squash! It's for real. As seen in the book by local author, David Westerlund titled, Simone Goes to the Market! Yes, the girls got his autograph and 3 other local farmers, Gretchen, Roslyn and Katie!


Girls Go Green and the Fairhaven Landmark!


Picnic lunch with our Laptop Lunches on the Fairhaven Village Green before taking the bus back to Bellingham. What an event filled day!

Day 2 - AIR - Enjoying the "Good" air today!

We continued our tour of local parks today, enjoying our 'good' air quality today after studying about 'good air' and 'bad air' at www.airnow.gov. Bellingham had a rating of 13 out of 500 for pollutants today, ranking us in the green zone for a 'good' day! We flew kites, learned what is in our air and how wind is made. Zoe was able to get Julia's kite flying super high! Our action today was getting around by walking along with making home-made blueberry muffins with only 7 ingredients vs. muffins made with many ingredients and packaged up in plastic. Ours were kinder to the planet! Oh, and we enjoyed a picnic lunch in the park and watched a really funny video called "Prescription for Air Care"! What a fun day we had together! Jada came up with a great name for the group...The Green Team!

Day 1 - WASTE - We toured our recycling center!

Wow! What a great first day of camp! We saw what happens to our recycled products when they get to the recycling center and how cool it was to stand on top of a bail of mixed paper! Everyone learned about reduce, re-use, recycle and rot (composting) and how people need to pay more attention to reducing how much they use vs. recycling and re-using. On our walk home we did a community service project, picking up trash along the Old Village Trail. We ended up with 4 lbs. of trash and recycled what we could. At lunchtime everyone learned how to make a waste free lunch and they all went home with a laptop lunch box (www.laptoplunches.com). After watching a video called Pollution Solutions, Julia remarked, "Now I understand why the earth is so bad." She went onto say that we need to take care of the planet. Isn't that the truth? What an amazing first day! Oh, and the t-shirts were a huge hit! Everyone loved wearing them! The t-shirts are from a company started by Bono, called Edun Live. Visit www.edun-live.com to learn about these organic cotton t-shirts that support sustainable socioeconomic development. Thank you Olivia for designing the camp logo and Tim Uttech for screen printing (sevenseasdesign@yahoo.com)!