http://www.footprintnetwork.org/images/uploads/National_Footprint_Accounts_Method_Paper_2010.pdf
http://jvvhealthboard.blogspot.com/2011/06/prajala-aarogyam-prajala-chetiloki.html
By Janice Steinhagen - Staff Writer
A messy, sloppy art project that also helps save the earth – what better way to mark Earth Day?
Sixth-graders in Erin Wraichette’s art classes at Griswold Middle School used scraps of newspaper, copy paper and leftover construction paper to make recycled paper seed planters on April 12. The project was just one of a week’s worth of activities at GMS organized by staff to mark Earth Day for students and teachers, starting April 11.
Rummaging through bins of leftover scraps from other art projects, groups of four students selected piles of scraps that they then tore into smaller bits. Wraichette urged the students to collect coordinated colors for their groups, using the color theory they’d already learned in class. “Mixing the wrong colors will give you mud – that works with paper too,” she explained.
The postage stamp-sized bits were then loaded into an ordinary kitchen blender, along with enough water to cover the pile. Once whizzed for a few seconds, the paper and water turned into a lumpy, fluid paper pulp. The contents of half a flower seed packet were sprinkled into the pulp.
The pulp was then poured into a stretched wire-mesh screen inside a wooden frame. The next step, explained Wraichette, was to press as much water from the pulp as possible, using first hand pressure and then a dry sponge. Some students chose to make a single sheet of paper to be divided evenly among those in the group afterwards. Other groups opted to make smaller “blobs” of paper, one per student.
The final step was drying. The frames full of pressed pulp were flipped over and the paper sheets plopped onto a section of newspaper, to be carried over and laid along the hallway wall for drying. Wraichette told the students that the process could take days, particularly with the wet weather predicted for the remainder of the week. “It’s going to be a soggy mess probably till Thursday,” she explained.
Why the seeds? The paper sheets are intended to be planted, said Wraichette. “It’s easier than just sprinkling seeds or planting seeds,” she said. “The whole thing can go right in the ground, and flowers will grow. All of it will biodegrade once you put it in the earth.”
Kicking off the week’s Earth Day activities was a presentation by Willimantic Waste Paper Company, the local garbage and recycling contractor, augmented by the distribution of “green” reusable shopping bags and “Every Day is Earth Day” band bracelets. The bracelets and shopping bags were in evidence throughout the school, hauled by students bringing books from locker to classroom.
Other planned activities included an outdoor scavenger hunt and a recycled bottle-cap mosaic mural. Wraichette said that students accumulated plastic bottle caps in bins of matching colors and glued them to corresponding sections of four large mural panels. The mural is now on display in the school cafeteria.
http://jvvhealthboard.blogspot.com/2011/06/prajala-aarogyam-prajala-chetiloki.html
# 10 Ways to Have More Responsible Children
Label: Tips
We'd all like our kids to develop into responsible people. How can we help to ensure that our kids learn the lessons of responsibility? Here are some ideas:
1. Start them with tasks when they're young.
Young kids have a strong desire to help out, even as young as age 2. They can do a lot more than you think if you're patient and creative. This helps build confidence and enthusiasm for later tasks in their life.
2. Don't use rewards with your kids
If you want your kids to develop an intrinsic sense of responsibility, they need to learn the "big picture" value of the things they do. They won't learn that if they're focused on what they're going to "get."
3. Use natural consequences when they make mistakes.
If they keep losing their baseball glove somewhere, let them deal with the consequences. Maybe they have to ask to borrow one for the game. Maybe they have to buy a new one if it's lost. If you rescue them every time they screw up, they'll never learn responsibility.
4. Let them know when you see them being responsible.
Specifically point out what you like about their behavior. This will make it more likely to continue to happen.
5. Talk often about responsibility with your kids.
Make responsibility a family value, let them know it's important.
6. Model responsible behavior for your kids.
This is where they'll learn it from. Take care of your stuff. Try to be on time. They're watching you very closely.
7. Give them an allowance early in their life.
Let them make their own money decisions from an early age. They'll learn their lessons in a hurry. Don't bail them out if they run out of money.
8. Have a strong, unfailing belief that your kids are responsible.
They'll pick up on this belief and they'll tend to rise to the level of expectation. And keep believing this even when they mess up!
9. Train them to be responsible.
Use role play and talk to them about exactly what kind of behavior you expect from them. It's hard for kids to be responsible when they don't know what it looks like.
10. Get some help and support for your parenting.
It's hard to know sometimes whether you're being too controlling or too permissive as a parent. Talk to other parents, read books, join parent support groups, whatever will help you feel like you're not alone.
1. Start them with tasks when they're young.
Young kids have a strong desire to help out, even as young as age 2. They can do a lot more than you think if you're patient and creative. This helps build confidence and enthusiasm for later tasks in their life.
2. Don't use rewards with your kids
If you want your kids to develop an intrinsic sense of responsibility, they need to learn the "big picture" value of the things they do. They won't learn that if they're focused on what they're going to "get."
3. Use natural consequences when they make mistakes.
If they keep losing their baseball glove somewhere, let them deal with the consequences. Maybe they have to ask to borrow one for the game. Maybe they have to buy a new one if it's lost. If you rescue them every time they screw up, they'll never learn responsibility.
4. Let them know when you see them being responsible.
Specifically point out what you like about their behavior. This will make it more likely to continue to happen.
5. Talk often about responsibility with your kids.
Make responsibility a family value, let them know it's important.
6. Model responsible behavior for your kids.
This is where they'll learn it from. Take care of your stuff. Try to be on time. They're watching you very closely.
7. Give them an allowance early in their life.
Let them make their own money decisions from an early age. They'll learn their lessons in a hurry. Don't bail them out if they run out of money.
8. Have a strong, unfailing belief that your kids are responsible.
They'll pick up on this belief and they'll tend to rise to the level of expectation. And keep believing this even when they mess up!
9. Train them to be responsible.
Use role play and talk to them about exactly what kind of behavior you expect from them. It's hard for kids to be responsible when they don't know what it looks like.
10. Get some help and support for your parenting.
It's hard to know sometimes whether you're being too controlling or too permissive as a parent. Talk to other parents, read books, join parent support groups, whatever will help you feel like you're not alone.
Happiness - It's Worth It
Label: Happiness
By: Kevin Sinclair
- We all want to be happy, don't we? Is there truly anyone out there that would choose a life of anxiety and depression if faced with a choice? I don't think so, and having a positive attitude about happiness can change everything. I think deep down, we all want to be happy and I'd like to show you how all of us can achieve this happiness.
- Life is fraught with problems. Maybe a divorce recently occurred or is in your near future. Maybe there has been a recent death in the family. Perhaps your kids have driven you to the last of your wits with their defiance. So, with all of this to be unhappy about you may ask, why be happy?
- For starters, it's healthier. A person that does not let their problems weigh on their mind also does not let stress get to them physically. It is proven that happier people are healthier. They choose to focus their mind on the positives in their life therefore they keep their stress levels down, which keeps the heart pumping regularly, the blood flowing nicely, and the blood pressure down.
- Need another reason for happiness? How about a positive influence on those around you. If you are a parent, or aunt or uncle, you have little ones looking up to you and learning from you as to how to deal with life. If you are often in public, your influence is felt by everyone you have contact with. A positive influence is definitely better and more productive than a negative one.
- Success in your life's pursuits is also a reflection of your mental state. If you go into your life's work with a negative attitude, you may be able to keep the job because you are doing the work, but you probably will not have much success in that job. If you want to have success in all of your life's pursuits, you must go in with a positive attitude. If you think that your accomplishments are small, they will be, but if you expect those accomplishments to be big and make a difference, they will be. Your attitude will certainly influence your successes in your life's pursuits.
- One of the first steps to take in accomplishing this happiness is to figure out within yourself what keeps you from being happy. Is it a major event in your life that's constantly on your mind? Is it a feeling of incompetence? Is it a self esteem issue that's been with you since your youth? Working this out within yourself is an important step. Journaling is an excellent way to do this.
- If you sit down and make a list of everything that is bothering you, you will have a much better chance of coming upon the thing that is truly holding you back from being happy. Not a writer? If you have a close friend that you can confide in, maybe you could bend their ear and together you and the friend will find the source of the problem.
- If you don't want to confide in someone you know, maybe a therapist will help. Once you've had an opportunity to work out what the problem is, you will be in the right position to draw up a plan of attack and finally reclaim the sunshine in your life.
- Once you have found the source of the problem, it is time to eliminate it. If your dark cloud comes every time you think about the problem, you have to find a counter device. If your mind tends to dwell on the negative, every time your mind goes there, find something that makes you happy to think about. After you've done this a few times, it will become a natural thing for you to refocus your mind on the positive when it drifts to the negative.
- If you're upset and are having a hard time finding happiness because of a temporary event in your life, try reminding yourself that this is temporary and eventually you'll be able to look back on it with less than negative feelings. By remembering that nothing lasts forever, you'll better be able to focus on the positive that will eventually return to your life.
- Happiness is something that everyone can achieve. It is something that everyone deserves and it's worth working for when times are rough. A focus on the positive will remind you that the negative is temporary and that no matter what, there is always something in life to remain happy about.
Students make new paper from newspaper for Earth Day
By Janice Steinhagen - Staff Writer
Jewett City - posted Tue., Apr. 12, 2011
From left, Juliana, Miranda, Disha, Nessa and Sydney tear construction paper scraps into bits to prepare it for recycling. Photos by Janice Steinhagen.
Sixth-graders in Erin Wraichette’s art classes at Griswold Middle School used scraps of newspaper, copy paper and leftover construction paper to make recycled paper seed planters on April 12. The project was just one of a week’s worth of activities at GMS organized by staff to mark Earth Day for students and teachers, starting April 11.
Rummaging through bins of leftover scraps from other art projects, groups of four students selected piles of scraps that they then tore into smaller bits. Wraichette urged the students to collect coordinated colors for their groups, using the color theory they’d already learned in class. “Mixing the wrong colors will give you mud – that works with paper too,” she explained.
The postage stamp-sized bits were then loaded into an ordinary kitchen blender, along with enough water to cover the pile. Once whizzed for a few seconds, the paper and water turned into a lumpy, fluid paper pulp. The contents of half a flower seed packet were sprinkled into the pulp.
The pulp was then poured into a stretched wire-mesh screen inside a wooden frame. The next step, explained Wraichette, was to press as much water from the pulp as possible, using first hand pressure and then a dry sponge. Some students chose to make a single sheet of paper to be divided evenly among those in the group afterwards. Other groups opted to make smaller “blobs” of paper, one per student.
The final step was drying. The frames full of pressed pulp were flipped over and the paper sheets plopped onto a section of newspaper, to be carried over and laid along the hallway wall for drying. Wraichette told the students that the process could take days, particularly with the wet weather predicted for the remainder of the week. “It’s going to be a soggy mess probably till Thursday,” she explained.
Why the seeds? The paper sheets are intended to be planted, said Wraichette. “It’s easier than just sprinkling seeds or planting seeds,” she said. “The whole thing can go right in the ground, and flowers will grow. All of it will biodegrade once you put it in the earth.”
Kicking off the week’s Earth Day activities was a presentation by Willimantic Waste Paper Company, the local garbage and recycling contractor, augmented by the distribution of “green” reusable shopping bags and “Every Day is Earth Day” band bracelets. The bracelets and shopping bags were in evidence throughout the school, hauled by students bringing books from locker to classroom.
Other planned activities included an outdoor scavenger hunt and a recycled bottle-cap mosaic mural. Wraichette said that students accumulated plastic bottle caps in bins of matching colors and glued them to corresponding sections of four large mural panels. The mural is now on display in the school cafeteria.
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