IHE News & Announcements April 2010

• What We Do Matters: Reflections on the Holocaust by a Survivor & a Student
  
• Featured Resources: Remembering the Holocaust
• Humane Education in Action: The Play's the Thing
• Treehuggers: Picture Books Honoring Trees
• Animals of Clay Show the Way to Saving the Planet

WHAT WE DO MATTERS: REFLECTIONS ON THE HOLOCAUST BY A SURVIVOR & A STUDENT

One of the required assignments for our students is to connect with someone who has suffered human rights abuses, to learn more about their lives and the challenges they faced, and to reflect on how the students can integrate that new knowledge into their own lives. One of our students, Daniella Schmidt, who currently lives in Germany, talked to a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust for her assignment. We wanted to share excerpts of his story (as written by Daniella), and Daniella’s own revelations about what she learned.

Gary’s Story:

Gary (formerly Gunter) lived in the small German town of Oberwesel with his extended family. His family ran a kosher butcher shop on the ground floor of the house and also had a wine business.  About 95% of the inhabitants of Oberwesel were Catholic, but there were also about 10 Protestant families and 15 Jewish families.

In 1933 the adults in the community began to join the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazi Party) and Gary’s friends joined youth groups. In Gary’s words, “Hitler promised everything to the people when they had nothing.  People were poor.  Most of the big businesses were Jewish.  That is what started this whole thing.” This growing hatred was mirrored in the experiences of the Lichtenstein family.  Gary’s friends began to stop talking to him and would no longer play with the other Jewish kids.  When children threw rocks at Gary, he stopped going outside since it was no longer safe.  His father could no longer run his business and began working as a laborer on a street repair crew. 

In 1941 the family received notice that they were to prepare for deportation to a concentration camp. Because Gary’s father was a respected officer in the first World War, the Lichtenstein family was sent to an unusual concentration camp, Therezienstadt, located in former Czechoslovakia. At first, the family did not fear going to the camps. Gary explains that, in Germany, unlike in other countries, the Jews identified themselves as German first, and then a Jew. Gary’s father asked the family, “What could they do to us? I am a good German and a respected officer of the first World War!”  Gary now answers, “They killed him, that’s what they did!” 

Nazis directed certain Jews to Therezienstadt for “safer” keeping, and it served as a propaganda model concentration camp to falsely demonstrate the “benevolent” care that Nazi Germany offered the Jewish community. Therezienstadt functioned like a small town run by the Jewish people, but overseen by the Nazi Regime, explains Gary. Gary states that the Nazis were rarely seen, only to deliver goods to the camp or an occasional patrol. This camp occasionally hosted visitors, like the Red Cross, investigating the camp conditions.  The camp was spruced up with bread overflowing out of bakery windows and mountains of candy in the shops.  Visitors left with the false belief from their brief visit, that all of the concentration camps were reasonably humane places. Over the course of the war, Therezienstadt housed about 144,000 Jews; 17,247 survived and of the 15,000 children, only 93 survived. Even with these grim statistics, Gary states, “I would rather live 10 years in Therezienstadt, than one day in Auschwitz.”

In Therezienstadt Gary helped his father with his work, taking the bodies of the people who had fallen ill and died overnight to a mass grave each morning. He recalls with horror having to lay each corpse in the pit.  After depositing a row of 48 corpses, laying them side by side, Gary and his father would need to step on the bodies to add a layer of wood planks before adding the next layer of bodies.  Gary says, “It was terrible, but there was nothing I could do.” 

After three years in Therezienstadt, Gary, his brother, his cousin and father were transferred to another camp, transported by cattle car to Auschwitz.  The new arrivals had to file one by one to a doctor, who threatened them with a whip as he directed them either to the right or the left.  Both Gary and his brother were directed to the right.  The man directed Gary’s cousin, who was in line between the two brothers, to the left.  They later learned that those directed to the left were murdered within hours of arrival. All children, all women with children, older people, and those deemed unfit by a cursory inspection by a doctor were immediately killed.

The single personal item Gary was allowed to keep was his belt.  A seasoned Auschwitz prisoner approached Gary immediately after intake and offered to trade a piece of bread for Gary’s belt. Gary reasoned that he could tie up his pants with a piece of string, so he agreed to trade for the bread.  The prisoner took Gary’s belt, held out his hand with the bread, and then hit Gary over the head with the belt and ran away with both the bread and the belt.  This was Gary’s experience upon arrival to Auschwitz and is an indication of the savagery of life there.  In his words: “It was a dog eat dog world there.” Gary and the other prisoners worked hard labor in 12 hour shifts and slept directly on the concrete floors of empty barracks. Gary says that he did not think much about what was happening to him and the others. All he could think about was that he wanted to live. After a week in Auschwitz, he and his brother then were transported by cattle car to Cleiwice, which was a small forced labor camp also in Poland, where he would live for one year. 

One day in Cleiwice the Nazis had the Jewish prisoners load up carts and vacate the camp.  Since there were no more horses, the officers forced the prisoners to pull the carts by rope.  If the rope went slack, the prisoner was whipped by an officer.  A Nazi whipped Gary across the mouth and broke all his front teeth with this one cruel stroke.  After pulling the carts all day, the Jewish prisoners slept in snow and ice-filled trenches at night in their thin uniforms, some men even marching without shoes. Of the 10,000 prisoners who started this march, only 3,000 remained at the end, dying on the road, or during the night, or simply giving up hope.  One of the most terrible mornings for Gary and his brother came after a night sleeping in the sub-zero weather among many men, and being the only ones who rose in the morning.  Gary attributes his survival, and his continued will to live, to the fact that he and his brother, by coincidence, were always together throughout their time in these camps.  They gave each other hope and support in the darkest hours, where most of the other prisoners had none.

The envoy eventually arrived at another camp.  One morning, the prisoners woke up and all the Nazi officers were gone.  For the next few days, the Nazis would return to the camp unexpectedly and try to kill as many Jewish prisoners as they could by opening machine gun fire on them from towers and throwing hand grenades into the camp from the front gates.  The Jewish prisoners knew that the Russians were close, and they retreated to the back of the camp for safety and hoped to be liberated. Over a few days, the Russian soldiers eventually took over the cam, gave the prisoners food and liberated them.  Gary weighed 84 pounds at the time of liberation after four years in concentration camps, the last year being the most brutal.

Upon arriving in Berlin, Gary and his brother immediately headed to the Red Cross office to find out if relatives were still alive. Gary has no words for the joy he felt upon being reunited with his family or his sadness to learn that his father had been killed.

The family returned to their home town of Oberwesel, and the townspeople welcomed them “with open arms.”  They said that they did not know what was really happening to the Jews and thought that everyone was just being sent to a relocation camp.  Gary expresses some sympathy for the ignorance of the townspeople, saying that even he and his family did not know at the time of deportation what was going to happen to them, since everything was, “so hush-hush.” 

However, Gary dismisses their claims ultimately as convenient lies to avoid the horrible truth. Gary states, “The townspeople knew.  My best friend’s father was a high ranking Nazi officer.  They knew what was happening to us.  They just didn’t want to talk about it.”  The town gave the Lichtenstein family their house back and a few belongings that had been given away and begged them to stay and restart their business. The Lichtenstein family could not forget how the town turned against all the Jewish families within days, after many years of good relationships. How could they forgive the extermination of millions of Jews and other “undesirables” throughout the Holocaust? 

The Lichtensteins lived in Oberwesel for two years, making preparations to immigrate to the United States, after deciding that they could not remake their lives in Germany.  Gary, his brother, his grandfather, sister and mother arrived in New York City with just $10 given to each of them by a Jewish organization.  Eventually the five Lichtensteins got a one bedroom apartment of their own. When Gary’s brother got married, and Gary was reunited with his girlfriend and got married, the new wives also came to live in this tiny apartment.  Eventually, they moved to California and started a new generation of Lichtensteins on the West coast.

Though his relatives have been back to Germany and urged Gary to accompany them, Gary has never returned to Oberwesel since he left in 1947.  He says, “I never want to go back.  I have no good memories and no roots there.  Within days, no one talked to us.  I have nothing good to say.”  He has not spoken German since his mother died.

His hope for the world is that “This never should happen again.  The young people should stick together and make this world a better place.”

Daniella’s Response:

This field trip to interview a survivor of human rights abuses provided an amazingly rich and personal experience for me to connect with Gary and to the Holocaust, whose horrors continue to echo today. 

My own family history, learned through family stories, came alive with threads of Gary’s story.  I contemplated Jenny Borisov, my great-grandmother, who was forbidden to go to school in Kiev, Russia, only because she was Jewish.  And a generation later, just before World War II, my Czechoslovakian Grandfather, Alois Svoboda, and his brother, fled Prague in 1938 to the U.S. in the early days of Nazi occupation.  Alois earned his U.S. citizenship by joining the U.S. military to fight for the Allies.

Even though these family connections to anti-Semitism and WWII are very personal, I still understood them in a very distant way.  Since my experience interviewing Gary, this distance has disappeared.  I look at pictures of emaciated concentration camp inmates, and I see Gary.  I think about the long roots of anti-Semitism that motivated Hitler, and I think about my great-grandmother, Jenny.  I think about my grandfather, Alois, driven from his home country, and then almost sent back to spy on the very military forces that he fled from.  Through Gary’s experience, not only has his life – and the terrible times of Nazi German -- become illuminated, but my own family history has become much more personal to me.

Living in Germany naturally brings up the topic of Nazism more than living in other countries.  I regularly talk with my German friends about WWII and have continued to be impressed with the honesty of Germans in speaking about this dark chapter in their history.  I believe this maturity has come with the passage of time, accurate education and discussion about Nazism in schools, and a brave humility to take responsibility for the atrocities of the mass genocide of many different groups. Germany continues to make reconciliatory efforts to make peace with its European neighbors and to Jews around the world. I continue to be humbled by my German friends for their candid willingness to talk about Nazi times. 

In 2008 my husband and I participated in a peaceful counter-demonstration to a neo-Nazi march in Bochum.  Much to my surprise, in a country that has taken so much responsibility for the atrocities of Nazism, people who follow the Nazi doctrine still exist in Germany and worldwide and demonstrate regularly.  During the event, I found myself visually assessing the other participants and wondering which ones were the “Nazis.” After a while, I had a realization:  Nazis do not look a certain way, because intolerance and hatred have no face.  Because these traits dwell in the heart, searching for Nazism in the faces, body language and clothes of the other participants could not possibly reveal what true motivations lie beneath the surface.  And most importantly, decent, ordinary people made up the bulk of those who participated in mass murder after being brainwashed with Nazi propaganda over years, and they returned to being decent, ordinary people after the fall of the Third Reich. Making assumptions based on my idea of what a Nazi looked like only made clear my own prejudices and stereotypes and falsely served to assure myself of my own differences from Nazis.  I need only to look back to playground situations as a child to know that I have participated in bullying or to my ignorance as to where my clothes were produced to know that I have participated in sweatshop slavery.

If Nazism is an extreme example of the evil that a society can become, we all must acknowledge the multiple examples of our own dark history in the United States: from the decimation of Native American First Peoples and the robbing of their lands, to the slavery of imported Africans, to the suppression of women’s rights, to the negative effects of globalization and the exportation of American culture, which destroys so much, each and every day.  

Becoming intimately familiar with Gary’s personal experience growing up in Nazi Germany has been the most powerful lesson in history I have ever experienced.  The Holocaust remains infamous in history, but tragically, the practice of genocide is still alive. The crimes extend beyond our species, but all are caused by our species. A holocaust in our factory farms claims the lives of millions of sentient creatures each hour, treating them as no more than food machines. Twenty-seven million modern-day slaves around the world still are forced into labor each day, though slavery is illegal everywhere. Our earth bears the scars of deforestation, pollution, species extinction, and some are still not convinced that we should try to combat global climate change. 

Each of us can be ordinary and possibly extraordinary heroes by challenging today’s corrupt systems that enslave other people, other animals, and the planet. Each of us can embody the best of humanity, beginning with our everyday personal actions of tolerance, basic respect, inclusion and a commitment to protect all species.  We all have the choice to embrace the truth, even when the truth is ugly, as Gary wishes his neighbors in Oberwesel had done.  His former neighbors were the first Holocaust deniers.  But what modern day holocausts do each of us choose to ignore each day?  We have a conscience, but do we use it only when convenient? Universal compassion needs to become humanity’s common religion for humans to survive, and so many at our mercy are quietly waiting for us to realize this.

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FEATURED RESOURCES: REMEMBERING THE HOLOCAUST

The week of April 11-18 serves as the National Days of Remembrance, an annual commemoration in the U.S. of the Nazi Holocaust during World War II.

Below are some resources humane educators, parents and concerned citizens may find useful for exploring and discussing issues of human rights and humanity.

PBS

In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, PBS is running a series of programs the entire week, including:

• The Diary of Anne Frank (April 11) – A new retelling of Anne’s story.
• Among the Righteous (April 12) – A search for Arabs who protected Jews during the Holocaust.
• Blessed is the Match (April 13) – A documentary about Hannah Senesh, a WWII-era poet and diarist who became a resistance fighter and was eventually captured, tortured and executed by the Nazis.
• Worse Than War (April 14) – An exploration of the nature of genocide, ethnic cleansing and large-scale mass murder in our time.

PBS will also offer a collection of new and past programs on the topic.

Facing History

Facing History is an educational organization that uses events and issues from the past to help teach students about making moral choices today.  They offer free downloadable lessons, resource books, and study guides about issues surrounding the Holocaust, Anti-semitism, Genocide, and more, as well as video clips by and about Holocaust survivors.

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, one of the major supporters of the National Days of Remembrance, has a host of online exhibits, learning materials and tips and resources for educators.

A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust

A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust, created by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology at the University of South Florida, provides access to numerous photos, documents, video clips, and suggested book, movie and other kinds of Holocaust resources. Additionally, there is a small collection of suggested lesson plans for a various age groups.

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HUMANE EDUCATION IN ACTION: THE PLAY'S THE THING 

If all the world's a stage, then IHE M.Ed. student, Kerri Twigg, is using that stage to teach children to think critically and creatively and to bring humane issues to the public conversation through theater. Kerri works to integrate issues of human rights, animal protection, environmental preservation and media, culture & consumerism into her work teaching drama to children and in her playwriting. Read our interview with Kerri about her successes and challenges.

Quick Facts:

Current hometown: Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada) 
IHE fan since: 2008
Current job: Many! Mom - currently on maternity leave from Youth Programs Coordinator position at the Winnipeg Art Gallery; freelance drama teacher.
Book/movie that changed your life: End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones
Guilty pleasure: Video games - especially role playing games.   
Inspired by: children, nature, art
Love about yourself: positive, approachable, kind   
One of your strengths: perseverance


IHE: What led you to the path of humane education?

KT: I actually read a review that Zoe (IHE's president) had written about Amanda Soule's book, The Creative Family. I searched the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), and it was the greatest educational idea I had heard. I had never planned on doing a masters degree before but seeing the program changed my mind. I had been teaching and looking for a way to make my teaching more valuable, to take it further. I was teaching creative drama and repeatedly telling parents and other teachers that I wasn't teaching drama to train actors; I was teaching drama to help develop confident and creative people. What I have discovered though my M.Ed. studies is that I was slightly incorporating humane education into my classes beforehand. IHE's program has given me the confidence to take it further more confidently.


IHE: You’ve been involved in drama and theater for many years. What drew you to the stage, and to teaching kids about acting and drama?

KW: I have been in the drama classroom for 13 years. After a successful high school internship I was hired to be a school registrar at a local theatre school; part of the job required me to be a teacher's assistant.  I enjoyed assisting in the classroom and started to learn how to teach drama. I moved up to team teaching and then developed and taught my own classes.

I love live theatre because it is an intangible moment. So much of our world is about getting and collecting stuff; theatre offers an experience. You cannot relive theatre, even if you see the same play with the exact same cast the next day -- it will have changed. It is an experience that demands (if it is good theatre) your attention and makes you sit down and focus on the story being told. You can't really multi-task theatre.

I teach drama because it is something I am naturally good at and because I believe it helps develop the part of humans that I most admire. I am saddened when children are asked "If you could have any super power in the world, what would it be?" and the answer is Batman, Spider-man, or Powerpuff Girls. Many children are so immersed in consumer culture that their play features reenactments of the last movie they saw. If children cannot confidently create and express their own ideas, from their very own imaginations, I am concerned about the types of adults they will turn into. 


IHE: Since pursuing your M.Ed. in Humane Education, you’ve been integrating humane education issues and concepts into your work teaching drama to youth. In what ways do you integrate those issues, and what has been the response by kids, their parents, and the audiences who see their work?

KW: I teach a class callled "Mrs. Twigg's Surprising Suitcase" for children ages 6-8. At the first class, the students enter the classroom with my assistant and do attendance. I am hiding in a large train trunk in the classroom. After attendance, I make a ruckus in the trunk and come out. All the students are told is that I was locked in the trunk by someone who didn't like that I was helping others. That is all we both know and from there we create a story. First they decided as a group where it happened; in this case they chose a planet they named Ahioterme pttb. The next class was dedicated to the environment; they decided what the air was like, vegetation, if there was garbage, how was stuff made. The next class we explored the animals -- how are they treated, do they get eaten, do they work, are the animals in charge of themselves or is another being in charge of them? On another class we explored the conditions of the other planetary inhabitants and their history and culture. We built an entire world based on their ideas. The result of the most recent class ended with a play about a factory that was manufacturing oil feathers that poisoned the planet and the animals. The factory workers were young girls and an attempt was made by the animals and other children to rescue them, which ended in a court hearing. We managed to cover child labour and social justice, and it was fun.

At the end of the term the children performed their favorite parts of the story for an audience of about 100 people.  Before the performance, I explained the storymaking process to the audience. When I announced that the play was about slave workers and social justice, the audience laughed. The children received positive feedback on the play itself. Some of the children plan on taking the class again, because the story will change based on the participants. Many parents remarked that their child had fun in class but never spoke to me about the content.


IHE: What have been your successes and challenges in combining drama and humane education?

KT: In my experience, children want to explore humane education. They hear about global warming and animals being hurt -- no one is talking to them about it and it can be scary and confusing. Drama is a way of working through some of these touchy areas creatively.  Drama allows the students to confront a situation fictionally and try out different problem solving solutions safely.

The limitations of my current work are that parents did not sign their kids up for a "humane" drama class, so humane issues cannot be my focus. Also, on the day we did the child factory workers, I played the role of the factory owner. At the end, as I was being led away to jail I asked, "How do you stop children from being forced to work on your planet?", and the children were shocked. They insisted that it did not happen on earth. We talked about how they could prevent it on earth, and what they could do about it if they found out it did happen on earth. But, I did not push it further with them, because firstly, they simply didn't seem prepared to hear it, and secondly, it was not what their parents had signed them up for.

I would really like to offer humane drama classes, and I am trying to find the right wording and venue for such a course. I think parents do want their kids to be educated and explore every subject in humane education, but how do I market such a course as meaningful, inspiring and fun?


IHE: Last year you wrote a play specifically focused on humane education issues for a playwriting contest that was part of the Carol Shields Festival of New Work and won first prize in the professional division. Tell us about that experience and what the play is about. What are your plans for the play?

KW: The experience was rewarding, and the award helped me pay tuition! Previous to writing the play I had been keeping what I was learning in the humane education courses separate from any of my creative work. Humane issues were linked to my teaching practice and that was it. But, as I sat down to write a play, all the issues I had been exploring in the courses kept popping up in my head and out of the characters' mouths. I realized that playwriting was another way I could educate.

The contest was to write a play in 90 minutes, and it had to contain certain phrases and places, One of them was Paris Hilton's birthday. The play is a one-act play about a couple who decide to live inside their apartment for one year -- no internet, radio, television or going out -- after they are disgusted by all the coverage of Paris Hilton's birthday. The only contact they have is with Brian, a friend who delivers their food to them once a week. The play touches on animal rights: the couple is vegan and Brian is not -- he has a lot to learn; on culture: is it socially responsible to bubble yourself off? How far do we have to go to  keep marketing out of our lives?; on environment: consuming less, becoming aware of one's garbage (Brian will only take one small bag of garbage down a week, and they have nowhere else to store garbage.)

One of the plus sides to their experiment is that the male character learns to listen. As the months go on and tension rises between the couple, he ends up sleeping on the living room floor. Desperate for new interaction he hears his neighbor speaking from the other side of the wall; she reads aloud, and this becomes his nightly entertainment. Every night he sets his pillows and blanket up against the wall and gives a light knock, and then she begins to speak. On the final night of their one year experiment, he sets his pillow and blanket up beside the wall for the last story and hears her choking. He is unable to rescue her (no phone, no keys), but she manages to die with notice and a friend.

The play is still in its first draft, and I have a bit of editing to do. I am going to submit the play to a few theatres and see if any of them are interested in workshopping or producing it. If not, we have a popular local fringe festival where I have self-produced work before. I also intend to format it into a screen format, because I think it could make a nice short film. My husband is a video artist, and since the story is set in one apartment, it would be easy to shoot ourselves.

IHE: For your M.Ed. thesis, you’re writing a play about activism for young people. Tell us about that experience. What’s your goal for the play?

KT: I am finding it challenging to create a play on a specific theme. My previous plays have started off as a basic premise and evolved from there, and this play has limits and a specific agenda. I am not interested in writing a traditional educational play; I am hoping to sneak information into the play, without the audience feeling the play has an agenda. My goal for the play is to create a piece of engaging theatre that motivates youth to take action. In addition to the play, I am also creating a five-day drama workshop that accompanies the performance. Some people are motivated by watching and others are motivated by doing.


IHE: What advice would you give to others who might want to integrate humane education into their passion for theater?

KT: I don't know if I can give advice on this yet, as I am just beginning to do this myself. The arts are an ideal place to integrate humane education, since most of the arts explore the human condition already. It is important to keep your audience in mind. The reason my play won was not because it was edgy or controversial; it was because it was well written and touched on issues people think about often, and it didn't answer all the questions. It showed human imperfection, and it did not point fingers. I have seen plays that are "issues" plays, and I found them boring and insulting. Entertain first. Also, a single play cannot give all the information in all the areas of humane education, so pick one or two to touch on. If you are successful, your audience will follow and hear about other issues in your next work.


IHE: Any future plans, dreams or projects?

KT: Right now, I am focusing on getting my thesis written and watching my new baby grow up too fast! I want to get better at marketing my playwriting work and create humane drama workshops locally.

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TREEHUGGERS: PICTURE BOOKS HONORING TREES

by Marsha Rakestraw, Online Communities & Special Projects Manager

Trees are mythical, magical and mysterious. We depend upon them for everything from the air we breathe to the inspiration for bad poetry to a source for the very materials that make our lives possible. Kids love trees. They love to climb them, trounce around their leaves, notice who lives in them, eat their fruits (and nuts and seeds), and play in their shade. Earth Month is a great time to celebrate trees, and in their honor, we have a sample list of suggested picture books that humane educators, concerned citizens and parents will want to add to their teaching libraries. 

Aani and the Tree Huggers by Jeannine Atkins. 1995. (32 pgs) Gr. 1-4.
Aani and her community rely on the trees in their forest for their survival. When men come and start cutting down the trees, Aani takes drastic action to save the trees…and her village.
Citizen activism. Conservation. Courage. India. Trees.

Gus is a Tree by Claire Babin. 2008. (32 pgs) Gr. Pre-K – 2
Gus falls asleep under a tree and dreams of becoming one of them, experiencing life through the lens of a tree. Great for building reverence.
Empathy. Forests. Reverence. Trees.

The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry. 2000. (40 pgs) Gr. PreK-3.
A man who walks into the Amazon rainforest, planning to cut down a tree, is visited by animals who plead with him to save their home.
Conservation. Ecology. Habitats. Nature. Rainforests. Wildlife.

What Planet Are You From, Clarice Bean? by Lauren Child. 2002. (32 pgs) Gr. 1-4.
When Clarice's brother decides to save their neighborhood tree from being chopped down, the whole family gets involved, and Clarice's school project gets more complicated.
Citizen activism. Environmental protection. Nature. Trees.

This Tree Counts! By Alison Formento. 2010. (32 pgs) Gr. Pre-K-2.
“Trees sure can do a lot!” Mr. Tate takes his class behind the school to plant more trees, but before they do, he has students listen to the tale of the lone tree who lives there.
Conservation. Counting.Trees.

The Tree by Dana Lyons. 2002. (32 pgs). Gr. Pre-K-3.
This song turned into a rhyming story tells of an 800 year old tree that reflects on its life as bulldozers come to cut it down. What will happen?
Citizen activism. Conservation. Trees.

We Planted a Tree by Diane Muldrow. 2010 (40 pgs) Gr. K-3.
Simple poetic text shares the benefits of planting a tree.
Ecology. Environmental protection.Trees.

Big Bear Hug by Nicholas Oldland. 2009. (32 pgs) Gr. K-2.
A bear is so filled with love and happiness that he hugs everyone he meets -- including the trees. When he meets a man with an ax, though, he has to decide whether he can stay true to himself while protecting the trees he loves.
Bears. Environmental protection. Kindness. Trees.

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. 1971. (72 pgs) Gr. Pre-K – 3.
As the Once-lers happily chop down Truffula Trees to make into items, the Lorax, who speaks for the trees, warns the people what will happen if they don’t stop. Will it be too late?
Citizen activism. Forests. Morality plays. Nature. Trees.

Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola. 2008. (32pgs) Gr. K-6.
Tells the story of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, and her creation of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya to help the health and well-being of her fellow citizens (especially women).
Changemakers. Conservation. Trees. Politics. Women’s issues.

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ANIMALS OF CLAY SHOW THE WAY TO SAVING THE PLANET

by Marsha Rakestraw, Online Communities & Special Projects Manager

I've always known that we can learn a lot from animals, and Aardman Animations, the creators of Wallace and Gromit and Creature Comforts, has proven it, with the creation of The Animals Save the Planet, 11 cute, clever, uber-short animated films on different environmental topics, including meat eating, plastic bags, water use, light bulbs, recycling, waste and transportation. Each video features animals in their natural habitat encouraging others to make green choices (such as the farting cow, the showering hippo, the recycling lions, and the bicycling penguin).

The shorts were originally created to show on Animal Planet, and they’re a terrific way to spark discussion about important environmental topics. With all the depressing news all over the media, it’s nice to find a fun, uplifting tool to encourage positive change, and Earth Month is a great opportunity to get those conversations started.

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