The Water Challenge

Talk to your teacher or a parent and ask if you can get involved with a shoreline cleanup. Cigarettes, food wrappers and containers, plastic bags, beverage bottles and cans and more are entering your local waterway. They can really hurt the wildlife that live there – some animals can get caught up in it, while others might mistake it for food. Why not take part in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup?

You don’t need balloons to celebrate your birthday. And you may not want them there anyway. Balloons often end up flying away and can end up in waterways – eventually drifting out to sea. Since they look a lot like jellyfish, marine wildlife, like the leatherback sea turtle, may mistake one for prey and eat them. That’s awfully hard on the digestion!

Are you in charge of walking your dog? After Fido has done his business, make it your business to stoop and scoop with biodegradable poop bags. When pet droppings gets into storm water, it eventually leads to our waterways, bringing with them bacterial pollution. About 15 tons of pet waste flows into ocean waters every day.

Do you have the coolest aquarium on the block? We bet you do! But watch what kinds of fish species you buy for your aquarium. Canada doesn’t have a lot of warm water fish, so most fish you put in your aquarium are exotic species. Ask your pet store where they get their fish. If they are captured from the wild, move on and find a more responsible pet store that buys exclusively commercially bred fish.

Or stingray. Or any wildlife. Swimming with the animals if fine, but interacting with them by either feeding them or petting them is not healthy for these animals. Think about it. Dolphins wouldn’t regularly hang out with humans. So why change their behaviour for a photo op? Admire them from afar.

Transform your schoolyard with trees! You’ll need your teacher on board and your principal too. Trees not only absorb carbon in the air, they also soak up and purify the water under the ground. And since all water eventually leads to our waterways, you’ll be making a difference to your local body of water.

Tell your parents you’ll do five more chores for month if they buy eco-friendly cleaners. You can even mix your own cleaning potion (with the help of your parents) using one part vinegar to one part water.