We are very proud to have 3 new Girl Scouts in the family this year! As a a grand ma, and a supporter of our youth and clean water, I am going to help get these little wonders get their WOW badges!

It's Your Planet—Love It!
Introducing the Second Series of Journeys

WOW! Wonders of Water

• The Brownie friends and Brownie ELF enjoy some wonder-filled adventures as they invite the real-life Brownies to explore the Wonders of Water.
• As they dive in, the Brownies realize they can create another big WOW as they try out new Ways of Working as a team.
• Brownies learn about the water cycle through a "Green Tea for the Blue Planet," and enjoy making their own rainbows as they explore the precious resource of water.
• Brownies pledge to LOVE water by protecting it, then team up to advocate for other people to SAVE water, too. As they SHARE what they have learned, they find they can inspire even more people to protect Earth's water.
• Along the way, Brownies experience what it is like to live in places where there is not enough water. They come to understand why the right to clean water is so important to everyone on Earth.
• Along the journey, the Brownies earn their LOVE Water, SAVE Water, and SHARE Water awards. As they celebrate their leadership accomplishments, they add the WOW! award to their vests, too!

Journey Awards
The WOW! journey presents Brownies the opportunity to earn four awards. Girls begin with small, personal acts and then move out to purposeful teamwork that engages the larger community and influences its members in significant ways.

• LOVE Water - This first award encourages girls to become aware of the many ways they use and enjoy water. As they begin to understand the science of water and its importance in the world, they will also make a personal commitment to protect it.
• SAVE Water - The second award is earned when the Brownies team up and speak up as advocates to protect water or keep it clean in their community. Girls start thinking as a team about what they will do for water. By making an effort that moves beyond themselves, the girls begin to realize the impact that group efforts can produce.
• SHARE Water - Girls earn the third award as they create an even bigger ripple by sharing their efforts for water with others, educating and inspiring them to join in, and asking them to commit to a water promise.
• WOW! - Girls culminate their journey by earning the WOW! Award, a grand finale that symbolizes the powerful change they've brought to their community. They earn the award by showing proof of their SHARE Water efforts, and by describing how their efforts relate to the Girl Scout Law and how they have had an impact as leaders.

Hey kids, don't let the Summer be a bore! Here are some fun things you can do with drink bottles. Have fun and recycle!

Summertime just might be getting a little boring. Are you running out of things to do? Did you forget Fathers Day? Here are some fun projects for you. Have fun or make a fast gift for Dad!

There are a lot of things you can do with an empty plastic bottle. Boats, bird feeders, flower pots, and the list could go on and on.

Do your part to keep plastic out of the landfills. Use your creative mind to make some Summer fun.


Plastic Bottle Birdfeeder - Make a refuge for one of our feathered friends by recycling a plastic soda bottle. FreeKidsCrafts has a lot of wonderful ideas for creating with recyclables.

Make some time for a Summer Jam Session with this fun idea.
Who hasn't blown across the lip of a half-empty pop bottle and marveled at the richness of the tone? As for what tone it was, however, that was anybody's guess. Well, no longer. We've calculated just how much water you need in eight 20-ounce pop bottles to create a major scale. Affix numbers to each bottle, 1 through 8 (or use different-colored stickers for younger kids), and jam away. Your first song? How about "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"?

THE MAJOR SCALE Do -- 7 ounces
Re -- 9 1/2 ounces
Mi -- 12 1/2 ounces
Fa -- 14 ounces
Sol -- 16 1/2 ounces
La -- 17 1/2 ounces
Ti -- 18 1/2 ounces
Do -- 19 ounces ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT 11123
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888555333111
54321 TIP: You can sharpen your chops by employing a piece of flexible plastic tubing. Rather than try to move your mouth from bottle to bottle, hold one end of the tube in your mouth and move the other end from bottle to bottle.
See more here http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/bottled-music-710430/

Need a quick, fun gift for Dad? Why not make a bottle boat? Got more time on your hands, You could try collecting enough bottles to build a real boat, or maybe even your own room. Check out what some are doing to reuse plastic bottles on a larger scale over on my other blog; Click here to find out more

Summer is for fun, we are certainly not going to run out of plastic bottles anytime soon, so why not just do something with them. What can you make with plastic bottles?

Here are some more sites to find fun things to do with plastic bottles. Have creative fun this Summer!

Free Craft Kids features tons of fun for crafty kids, and adults too!

Artists Helping Children has a huge list of wonderful things you can do with recycled items.

And over on Yahoo, there is even more.

So stop complaining that you are board, just look around, and help reduce, reuse, and recycle!

Fun Harvesting Rainwater

When teaching our kids to be Eco-conservative, it is important to make it fun. Rainwater harvesting can be a really fun project for any kid, any age. We only have so much safe drinking water available, and that supply is shrinking. Collecting and using rain water around the house will help conserve water.

There are many ways the collected rainwater can be used. Of course, you should not drink it without first filtering. But rainwater can be perfect for; flushing toilets, watering plants, washing the dishes, and even the laundry. Make a list of other ways that rainwater could be used to save water.

Next, you will need a way to capture the water. There are many products available and can be as simple as a water tight barrel, or a complete rainwater collecting kit that can be purchased on Amazon. There are quite a few to choose from in a wide price range, so this is a project that doesn't have to be very expensive.

Once you have a way to collect that rainwater, how about some fun ways to transport it. Simply use play buckets you may already have, or purchase some new ones and let the kids decorate them. Make sure each kid has their own  bucket. This will help make it more personal.

Now, put their ideas they had for using the rainwater collected. Split the many ways between the family. Put each one in charge of different water tasks. Example: the oldest and strongest could gather water for large projects and the younger, smaller ones get the smaller jobs.

Have some fun with it, let them use that rainwater for water play, filling up squirt guns, or water balloons and they are really playing in the rain!

Use it as a math teaching tool as well. Have the kids track how much water is saved by using their rainwater. There are many lessons that can be learned from conserving valuable resources.

I doesn't matter how you collect and use the rainwater, The important thing is to teach our children to conserve what we have for their future. After all, nothing can live without water.

Teaching our next generation about water, water quality, and water conservation is as important as teaching them to tie their shoes. We need water to survive. We need safe, uncontaminated water to stay healthy. Here I will post reviews of children's resources for educating Indiana kids on the importance of preserving and maintaining safe drinking water.

To support Multipure's Pure Foundation, Indiana Water Filters is hosting this blog to educate Indiana Kids on the importance of preserving and maintaining safe drinking water for all.  We welcome comments, tips and questions.

The top on my list of resources for educating our children about water is the Water Science For Schools page on the USGS.org site.