10 Ways to Give Back That Involve Nature and the Great Outdoors
my world • Mom It Forward Mondays
This week’s Season of Service challenge involves serving in or for the outdoors or “in nature,” one of our country’s best resources.
10 Tips for “Natural” Service
Here are 10 bite-size ideas:
- Buy lunchboxes for your kids’ school lunches instead of sending them in paper lunch bags. The fewer trees that have to be cut down, the better.
- Volunteer to pick up trash at a community event.
- Take a friend geocaching.
- Do a Wildlife Activity Day with your kids. Go to the NatureWatch section of the National Forest Service’s website for ideas and printables.
- Take your kids to your nearest national park and ask for a Junior Ranger packet at the park’s visitor center. The Junior Ranger program is a fun way for kids to explore nature and science at their own pace, and they get their own park ranger badge or patch!
- Become a member of your local nature conservancy to increase your awareness of and support for their efforts to preserve nature in your state.
- Volunteer to help record the calls and collect data on frogs and toads in your area for FrogWatchUSA. These animals are considered indicators of environmental health.
- Help a wildlife manager remove exotic or other unwanted plants from a natural area.
- Adopt a black bear through the National Wildlife Federation and help to preserve its habitat.
- Help out with a one-time event or enter research data for the National Wildlife Federation.
How Will You Give to Others This Week?
- What other ideas do you have for giving to others in the outdoors?
- How has being in nature made a meaningful difference for you this week?
- How have others given to you this week and what difference has that made in your life?
How Else Can You Make a Difference This Season?
Make a meaningful difference this season by taking the Season of Service (SOS) Challenge. Here’s how you can participate:
- Commit to do one act of kindness/service based on the week’s challenge.
- Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week’s challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
- Enter to win each week’s giveaway. Check out this week’s prizes from Sanborn Western Camps by clicking here.
- Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.
these are outstanding ideas–I’m heading over to the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument later this week to get my son signed up for the Junior Ranger program–check out NWF Be Out There site for great activity ideas: http://www.nwf.org/Get-Outside/Be-Out-There.aspx and I love to share ideas I come across on Twitter (@sanborncamps). The #playoutdoors hashtag on Twitter is another great resource for activity ideas from moms/families/bloggers from around the world. Thanks for the SOS! Fondly, Ariella
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What a great post. Today I took my munchkins to a play put on at the museum about taking care of nature and reducing pollution, the kids loved it. It’s great to get our children aware of caring for our planet at a young age. ~Cheryl
Great list. I brought my boys to the playground and someone nicely left many empty beer cans. We picked them up and we will always practice a “leave it better than you came” mantra when it comes to the outdoors.