How YOU Can Help

You don't have to start a conservation organization to make a difference. You can help anywhere - at home, school, work, or even getting to one of these places. It's not hard at all. This page is all about how YOU can help in your daily life.

Remember, you don't have to do anything fancy to help. You can even start in your own backyard. One way you can help is by growing an environmentally friendly garden. Look up some local plants in your area, and make sure you include pollinator (bees and butterflies) friendly plants. They usually like flowering plants such as honeysuckle, goldenrod, butterfly bush, lantana, and pretty much any type of wildflower. You'll want to pick plants native to your area because those are the ones the local wildlife will be most used to.

I'm sure you've heard of the three R's - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. These are probably some of the simplest ways you can help the environment. Reduce the amount of plastic, paper, glass, pretty much anything disposable, that you use. This means less disposable products sitting in the landfills, or using a lot of energy being recycled. Reuse things such as plastic water bottles or even the backs of pieces of paper so we don't use so much in the first place. Last but not least, recycle, recycle, recycle. This helps to keep the landfills slightly cleaner, by making old things, such as plastic bottles, into new ones. You can also recycle old soft drink cans or, again, water bottles, to make pencil holders, flower pots, decorations, etc. And here's a bonus one for you. I've seen posters in the grocery stores that say to "Reduce, REFUSE, and Recycle." Refuse is a good R too, because they mean to "refuse" to or stop using plastic bags and other un-environmentally friendly things like them.

Something else you can do is support one of the many organizations that help the rainforests, oceans, endangered animals, and other things like that. You'll find plenty of links to their websites on the Home and Animal of the Week pages, but if you don't like those ones, you can search the internet for an organization to support. I have checked over all the links on this blog, and they all seem very trustworthy. You will want to do that too if you're thinking about donating to a so-called organization. If you have any that you can't access from here, leave a comment with the link so I can add it.

If you live close to where you go to school or work, try not to take a car or bus if you can. Walking or  riding a bike reduces your carbon footprint, and it is also good exercise.

Another easy way to help is just to raise awareness. You can write things on a blog (like I did here), you can sell lemonade to raise money, or you can just bring it up in a regular conversation. The more people that are aware how we need to help, the better.

I hope this was helpful to you and that you can use some of these ideas sometime. Remember, you don't have to use just these ones. If you have any other ideas, or you want to share how YOU helped, please feel free to leave a comment below. Thanks!

Here is a link I found with some ways to help with the many environmental problems there are. Some of these things you would never even think of are actually very helpful.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-10583/if-you-do-nothing-else-for-our-planet-at-least-do-these-10-things.html