Covenant's tradition for our annual Children & Youth Sunday is to have our 5th graders give the proclamation. Standing up in front of a congregation and talking to them about God makes me feel queasy. Yet these 10 year olds handle the pressure with poise and a confidence I know I didn't have at 10! This year we asked our 5th graders, "How are we co-creators with God?"
One young man took this question, and his love of science, quite seriously. I wanted to share some of his thoughts. Its a lesson in environmental respect that we can all learn from.
One young man took this question, and his love of science, quite seriously. I wanted to share some of his thoughts. Its a lesson in environmental respect that we can all learn from.
At the Arboretum they consider fires and hurricanes an opportunity to remove some of the invasive species and give native species a chance to fill in the new growth. If there are any invasive species nearby, like in your backyard, you can help by pulling them out. At Camp Community we learned that sometimes a healthy water system doesn’t always look clean and pure, and that Nature is a filter. That was the point of the filters we made, that pouring dirty water through grass and rocks and dirt actually made it cleaner. At first I predicted that it would make the water dirtier, but the opposite was true. We learned about how we can filter different water mixtures that had different pollutants. I learned that cool wildfires that occur naturally can stay low in the forest. They are actually pretty good because they provide nutrients and room for other plants grow, and they don’t kill many trees. A hot wildfire-- like the ones people start accidentally-- can burn high into the canopy and spread, killing many trees, animals, and habitats. Sometimes foresters set prescribed fires on purpose or let a fire started by lightning continue to burn to help clear some of the layer of dead wood and leaves that has built up on the forest floor. Everybody can do a part to help protect the earth. Even the little things help. If you’re doing a science project and one person completes only 20% out of a hundred, that helps! It’s better than 0% or 5%; they did their best, they did their part, and now it’s time for the other people to do their part. Protecting the earth can be hard or complicated, but whatever the cause, a true co-creator will do anything to save the earth from threatening predicaments. | No Children & Youth Sunday is complete without art from 4 year olds!  "The Earth"  A tree and VERY happy fish!  "The Sun" |
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