At-Home Projects & Fact Sheets

Can you feel that back-to-school crispness in the air? As September rolls in, so do cooler temperatures and preparation for another busy school year. Throughout the course of the year, kids will utilize a lot of school supplies and materials but that doesn’t mean there has to be a lot of waste produced as a result. This month’s Take Five focuses on helping you make eco-friendly shopping choices that can minimize your environmental footprint.

All the wrapping paper, tags and trimmings involved in gift giving makes for a lot of wasted paper come Christmas morning, after the kids have torn apart their presents. With this bow tutorial, you can have an eco-friendly holiday while wowing your tikes in just 12 minutes flat.  

Itching to know some fun facts on biodiversity in celebration of the International Year of Biodiversity? Biodiversity essentially means the variety of life on Earth, basically the variety between species and the variety of ecosystems in a given region. It’s everywhere and all around us.

After ringing in the New Year, Canadians are preparing to face some of the coldest temperatures of the year. With that in mind, are you ready for the cold, or better yet, can you capture it? CWF’s monthly photo contest By Popular Vote is celebrating January with the theme “Catch the Chill” which encourages photos of Canada at its coldest. Brrrrr….we’re already feeling the chill over here!

It wasn’t until two years ago that I had my first real camping experience. Although growing up I spent most of my summers around lakes, it wasn’t until I moved away from home that I decided I was ready for a real outdoor adventure – and I loved it!

Two former Montrealers share the trials and rewards of building their dream mountainside eco-home. Of course, not all of us can build a house on a mountain, but there's nothing stopping us from imagining what our ideal green home might look like. After all, every good greening project begins with an idea and every perfect home starts out as a dream.

Don’t traipse along without purpose! Get a mission and carry it out! We’ve got five activities you can do along your walk—for wildlife and for yourself.

Spring has sprung, and along with the flowers in our gardens and buds on the trees can also come weeds through pavement cracks and mischievous insects that may dampen spring excitement.

Create unique greeting cards, invitations and decorative natural scenes while supporting the Canadian Wildlife Federation!  

Have you made your list and checked it twice? Don’t forget the critters in your own backyard! Here are five ways that you can support wildlife this Christmas.
 

Each November we recognize those who have given us the free country we love today. As we take time to remember, we wanted to share some stories of hope and inspiration for this issue of Take Five. We encourage you to check out our Facebook page and share stories that inspire you with all of the other fans of CWF!

One of my favourite reasons for watching the current plethora of home-design TV shows is the chance to see endless new and exciting ways to use flowers to dress up a room. The one-upmanship of the designers has led to some really fun and interesting cut flower arrangements that help us look at colour and combinations in a whole new light. No longer are we tied to rules in proper use of the colour wheel and the rigid shapes formerly thought to be acceptable for floral design. Moreover, the types of plants used have expanded to include everything from houseplants to bulbs to shrubs and every plant part from the stems to flowers to leaves.

CWF wants to help you get green for Halloween – and we don’t mean the ghoulish green of your costume! Climate change is scary enough on its own; let’s do what we can to reduce our impact every day. 

What you can do to help pollinators 

Although winter doesn’t officially arrive until December 21, we can safely say that it’s felt like winter in Canada for a while now. For this month’s chilly Take Five, we’re featuring five nifty facts about snow, thanks to Environment Canada’s senior climatologist David Phillips. Bundle up!

For this edition of Take Five, we’re getting lovey-dovey about nature. These couples are fetching aren’t they? Snap your own pics of wildlife in love and enter our February By Popular Vote contest. The theme for this month is “Love is in the air.”

Does your blood pressure rise with energy prices at the thought of heating your home this winter? Instead of pumping money into heating fuel, make your home more efficient this winter.

There are four main sources of energy-loss in the home: air drafts, lack of insulation, heating and lighting. Completing and acting on a home energy audit is a small task that can add up and make a big difference. By taking steps to increase home energy efficiency, the average household could save roughly $400 a year and eliminate two tonnes of carbon emissions —actions that not only save you money but also the environment and wildlife. 

By April Overall and Sarah Jones
In a wild world that condones roaming eyes, pairs that stick it out for the long haul are a dime a dozen. They might not send Valentine’s Day cards, dine by candlelight or listen to Barry White to set the mood, but these couples know how to keep the love alive.

Christmas crunch time. You’ve got five holiday parties to attend in the next three days, Fido has ripped apart the gifts you just finished wrapping, and you’ve eaten half your stash of shortbread cookies from the stress of it all. If it seems like nothing’s going quite right this festive season, get some good holiday karma by greening your Christmas tree.  

Staying home for your summer vacation is a great way to discover adventure in your own backyard. 

With Halloween just around the corner and fall already at the door, it’s the perfect time to head out to the local pumpkin patch to nab the biggest Halloween pumpkin you can find. Some local farms will also offer hayrides, petting zoos, corn mazes and more so you can make a whole day of it! After you carve ‘er up, creating the spookiest Jack o’ Lantern on the street, why not create a snack the whole family can enjoy? 

Plan a holiday party that Martha and Mother Nature would tip their hats to.

Being born. Taking your first step. Losing your first love. Getting married. Giving birth. We’re no strangers to journeys. They propel life forward. Take Five’s regular contributor, Stephanie Bonner, is taking a grand journey of her own this October—from Miss to Mrs.  Her leap into matrimony has gotten us thinking about all the great journeys that life has to offer. Let’s delve in to nature’s top five greatest journeys: the ones that bring species thousands of kilometres from home.

The holidays are about living large: lots of fun, food and festivities. Still, you don't have to turn into an über-consumer. If climate change is on your mind, here are a few simple ways to trim carbon emissions from your get-togethers and keep things stylish and seasonal

By Stephanie Bonner
There’s no question that Canadians lead busy lives, but how much of what we do involves physical activity? We tend to be on the go just to keep up, with grocery shopping, picking up the kids, tidying the house—and with all that hustle and bustle there doesn’t seem to be enough time left over to get outside.

Ahh, finally! June is here! Time to embrace summer’s warmth and cool off with a mad dash through the sprinkler. But have you ever wondered how people’s everyday actions are affecting water quality before it gets to the sprinkler? In this month’s Take Five, we’re taking a look at a recent study from the Ocean Conservancy International Coastal Cleanup survey.

What could be more romantic than running away with your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day? We’ve got the top five romantic retreats that have got CWF’s stamp of approval (all having been certified as wildlife-friendly by CWF’s Backyard Certification Program), where you can escape the bright lights of the city and cozy up with your honey.