Here are a few tips from UNICEF on how to talk positively and constructively about the environment with children:

• Find out beforehand! There are lots of free resources available.
• Get children talking: ask them questions and listen to what they have to say. You’ll be surprised how much they already know!
• Use the appropriate resources (Youth Conservation, for example!) and take examples from everyday life.
• Go outside and observe nature with them: there’s nothing like a walk in the fresh air to raise awareness.
• Focus on solutions: every problem has its solution. Take concrete examples that are easy to implement at home and in their daily lives.
• Finally, encourage them to take action: sign them up for a nature club during the school year, for example, or for nature camps during the holidays! 

Read the full article here. 

Our partners are our best ambassadors, and here are some of the key activities they think work best for talking to children about the environment:

• Storytelling and poetry are a great way of encouraging children’s creativity while checking that they have retained the main messages. So why not organise a poetry and storytelling competition around a specific theme (e.g. saving the Earth’s biodiversity)? The best entries will be selected and published in a collection. Thanks to the NGO Nature Plurielle in Benin for this great idea!
• What could be more fun and lively than a play to illustrate the key messages around nature conservation? You can either call on a troupe of amateur actors or have the children play caricature roles (the one who throws all his rubbish on the ground, the one who cuts down trees, etc.). The children can write the text themselves and make the costumes from recycled materials. At the end of the play, plan a discussion time with the children to check that the messages have got through! They’ll talk about it around them and be sure to take it home with them.
• After school or at the weekend, you can organise family talks: the Guinean NGO ONG Éducation en Environnement et Développement Durable invites itself to a family’s home for a few hours at the weekend and brings children and parents together for a moment of listening and sharing on the theme of ‘the threats to nature’. It’s a convivial moment that strengthens the bonds between parents and children, and makes everyone aware of the need to change their everyday behaviour.