TIME FOR KIDSHELPING PLANET

EARTH

VOCABULRY

CONSERVATION

EXTINCT

HAR

HARDEST

REMAINS

TROUBLE

PRAIRIE PROBLEM

“We really do not have a lot of time

left to save the prairie,” says Ron

Cole. A prairie is a large, flat area

covered with grasses.

Prairies have very few trees.

Prairies once stretched across

the middle part of the United

States. Today, most of that

land is covered with farms

and towns instead of grasses.

Ron Cole belongs to a conservation

group that teaches people to take

better care of the prairie. Their goal

is to protect the prairie land that

remains. That will help the plants

and animals that live there.

BE CAREFUL

WE’RE ALMOST

GONE!

Experts warn us that many animals on

our planet are in trouble. More than

one thousand animal species are

endangered! That means that they

may disappear forever and become

extinct.

It is natural for some plants and

animals to become extinct. But now

humans are causing more living things to

become extinct than ever before. As people

cut down forests, mow down prairies, or move

into deserts, plants and wild animals get

pushed out.

Protecting endangered species is one

of the hardest jobs people face. The

good news is that people are

working to solve this problem before

it gets worse.

A WAY TO HELP PLANET EARTH

What can everyone do to help

keep Earth clean?

Keeping Earth healthy is an important job. That’s

what environmental conservation is all about.

People who do that job are working to keep

the air, land, and water clean. They are also

working to keep endangered plants and

animals from becoming extinct.

One of the hardest jobs

is solving the problem of

trash. The trouble with

trash is that it keeps

piling up. We could run

out of places to put it.

A lot of our trash comes from plastic. Soda, juice,

water, shampoo – these all come in plastic

bottles. Too much plastic is one of our worst trash

problems. When a plastic bottle becomes trash,

it remains trash for hundreds of years.

That’s because plastic

doesn’t change

much as it gets old.

Is there a better way

to deal with plastic?

Yes! We can recycle it.

RECYCLE IT!

When we recycle, we take something

that’s been used and turn it into

something new. An old plastic bottle

can stay old and become trash. Or

that old plastic bottle can be

recycled and become something new.

Here’s how it works. People save their plastic

bottles. A special recycle truck picks the bottles

up and takes them to the recycling center.

Here, the bottles are crushed into small pieces.

Then the small pieces of plastic are melted

down. The melted plastic is sent to a factory.

1. PLASTIC IS SEPARATED FROM OTHER TRASH

2. SANITATION TRUCKS COLLECT THE RECYCLABLES

3. PLASTICS ARE TAKEN TO A RECYCLING CENTER

4. BOTTLES ARE CRUSHED INTO SMALL PIECES

5. A FACTORY TURNS RECYCLED PLASTIC INTO SOMETHING NEW AND USEFUL

At the factory, the old plastic

is made into something new.

It may become a new

bottle or maybe a new rug.

It may become a

backpack or maybe even a

slide at a playground!

Sometimes there’s not

much kids can do to help

solve our planet’s problems. But kids can do

a

lot about trash. Recycling

is one way all people,

young and old, can make

a big difference!

WATER TROUBLE

Cormelia Gogu lives in Romania.

Last year her school did not have

clean water to drink. The water pipes

were old and rusty. Workers from several

countries replaced the pipes so

Cormelia’s school now has clean water.

Cormelia doesn’t take

water for granted. But

many people do. In

the United States we

can just turn on a

faucet to get clean

water. It isn’t that

easy in other countries.

Most of the Earth is

covered with water.

But only a small

amount is safe to

drink. Some places

receive little rainfall, so

there isn’t enough

water to grow crops.

In other places the

water is so dirty that it

is not safe to drink.

Groups such as the United Nations

are working to solve these problems.

People need to save water so that

everyone has water to drink.