Nickelodeon Releases New Environmental Game: Local Youth Making Positive Academic Impact

With seemingly endless issues regarding the health of our environment today, Nickelodeon, the world-famous children's network, released a new online eco-game to help bring even more attention to these issues. Awareness amongst elementary, middle, and high school students with issues in the environment seems to be at an all time high, and this multi-player online game is based around those very same issues.

At local high schools, many pro-active students are taking the initiative to start up "green" movements. High school students also seem to be the most active amongst young children, because their widespread use of social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter allows for many of their peers to become aware of their actions.

I have personally received a significant number of requests on Facebook with regard to environmental issues, and found that they have actually come from middle and high school students. Normally, they come in the form of a planned event through the high school or middle school sponsoring the initiative. Since these invitations to join their initiative are frequently overlooked by someone who doesn't necessarily care as much about the environment, these groups normally ask the recepient to do something simple, such as turn off the lights in the room before leaving your housing complex, or take a shorter shower.

Students in elementary and middle schools around the area are also fairly active in promoting awareness of several environmental issues. Many science teachers who teach these young students schedule several field trips to visit places with some sort of impact on the environment. For instance, instead of going to the zoo, the school may schedule a trip to a nearby wetland or lake that has been affected by pollution. While in high school, we took a trip to a waste management plant, where we were instructed on how they handle the waste that comes through to accommodate the environment.

Students from all around the area are getting more active with regard to environmental issues than ever before. Nickelodeon's game should help in raising environmental awareness to a whole new level.