Energy Star Kids

comments (0) September 30th, 2008 in Blogs

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Posted by: Chris Hoelck, senior copy/production editor at Fine Homebuilding

This week, my eighth-grader is going back to elementary school.

For her silver-award project for Girl Scouts, Claire is returning to her grade school to get them rolling with a recycling program. You’re never too old to start thinking green or to get into the habit of recycling paper, metal, plastic, and glass, but it seems that one of the most efficient ways to instill such good habits is to start them while you’re young.

I am glad to see that the folks at the Department of Energy are thinking along those same lines. While I was doing some fact-checking for an upcoming article about home-energy audits, I discovered Energy Star Kids. This site has tabs that pop up with screens inviting kids to learn about energy and ways that they can help to conserve it, energy-related terms, and facts about energy usage.

Energy Star Kids also has a section for parents and educators to find ways to help children interpret and use the information on the site.

I know that Energy Star Kids is a bit of a side road for Claire’s overall project, but I hope she can find a way to work this Web site into her presentations. I also hope that Energy Star Kids reinforces one lesson that hasn’t quite sunk in yet: to remember to turn off the light when she leaves a room.