BY ANYA WASSENBERG, www.samaritanmag.com
Can kids come to the rescue of our endangered wildlife? Woodbridge, Ont.-based non-profit Earth Rangers educates and empowers young people to become involved, giving them the ammo they need to care and act.
Its colourful comprehensive website has games, videos, contests and online rewards for Bring Back The Wild, the kid-powered fundraising campaign launched in 2010 in collaboration with Nature Conservancy Canada that empowers kids to help protect animals and their habitats.
“Our focus is to communicate to children a positive science-based message on the importance of protecting biodiversity and adopting more sustainable behaviours,” it states in the “about” section of the site.
The organization reaches hundreds of thousands of children through interactive live animal shows performed in schools, at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum and at community events. It also engages kids through a national outreach campaign on YTV and via more than 100,000 Earth Rangers.
“It’s not something that’s being forced on them by teachers ,” Earth Rangers executive director and co-CEO Peter Kendall tells www.samaritanmag.com. “It’s amazing the letters we get from parents. One parent wrote how she cried when she realized her child was getting involved in trying to help.”
Here are the facts: an estimated 25 percent of mammals, 31 percent of reptiles and 33 percent of ...