Green Picture Book Promoter Recruitment: Not Just Stories, but Green Actions in Daily Life

Green Picture Books Nurture Children's Environmental and Climate Literacy
The development of environmental and climate literacy cannot be achieved overnight; it needs to start from everyday life and early childhood education, which is precisely the core mission of the Green Picture Book Group. The 2017 Green Picture Book volunteer training was more rigorous than in previous years, with higher demands and challenges for participants. The 9-month course required learning not only the basic Green Picture Book curriculum, but also acquiring current knowledge and professional expertise related to Green Picture Book topics and learning to use Green Picture Book lesson plans related to low-carbon living: "Something From Nothing" (Ye Ye Yi Ding You Ban Fa), which extends the use of objects as long as possible and creates new value from old things; "Grandpa's Organic Bread" (Ye Ye De You Ji Mian Bao), which breaks away from dependence on pesticides, chemical fertilizers and artificial additives and rebuilds an intimate relationship between people and food from the heart; "The Bird Doctor by the Sea" (Hai Bian De Niao Yi Sheng), which raises awareness of the harm plastic waste causes to marine ecology and thereby encourages giving up single-use items; and "It's All Farting's Fault" (Dou Shi Fang Pi Re De Huo), which helps readers understand the impact of livestock farming on global warming and ecology and thereby choose low-carbon diets such as eating less meat and more vegetables, eating local and seasonal food, eating less processed food, and supporting friendly production, among others.
During the training, we also took participants outdoors to carry out beach cleanup service at Wanghai Lane in Keelung, connecting with the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) to conduct statistical records. We also enhanced mutual understanding, communication, friendship, trust and team cohesion through various team-building experiential activities. Of course, apprenticeships and internships and participation in group work meetings were also indispensable, and in the end participants still had to jointly produce a lesson plan design for "No Money, Still Can Celebrate the Festival" (Bu Yong Qian, Ye Neng Guo Jie). After attending the training, participants realized: "Green Picture Book volunteers not only need to be able to tell stories, but also need to be able to design activities, lead activities, and even more understand diverse issues such as the environment, food, energy saving and carbon reduction." Especially during trial storytelling, seeing the children's focused eyes and their acceptance of and commitment to extended topics made them feel even more that promoting Green Picture Books is something very important and worth doing.

Beach Cleanup: Turning Plastic Reduction from Issue Awareness into Green Action
Green Picture Books emphasize experiential learning and green action experience, so after the course "Things the Sea Taught Me" by Chen Ren-ping, founder of Haiyong Studio, we took participants to the real coast of Keelung. Beach cleanup is a course and also a practice of green action. When participants led the Green Picture Book "The Bird Doctor by the Sea," what moved the children was not only the fun of the story and games, but also that heart of reducing plastic and loving the sea.

Passing On Green Picture Books, Making Low Carbon a Way of Life
By the end of 2017, participants had also become partners of the Green Picture Book Group and launched the Low-Carbon Living Green Picture Book Story Train. Watching new partners go from having only a partial understanding of Green Picture Books to seriously discussing and revising existing lesson plans after real practice; and from noticing and understanding environmental problems to bringing their families along and influencing students to begin "low-carbon living," these various changes make Green Picture Books one of the hopes for reversing the climate crisis.

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Starting this year, Green Picture Books has extended its steps to Hsinchu. In the course, besides leading participants into the world of picture books and cultivating lesson plan writing ability through teacher Zhang Shu-qiong from CommonWealth Parenting, teacher Lin Yu-pei, convener of the Homemakers United Foundation Green Picture Book Group, local picture book author Zhang You-ran, and freelance writer and storyteller Hong Zhen-yu, teacher Jiang Shu-li, director of the Homemakers United Foundation Environmental Protection Foundation, Professor Dong Shi-rui of the Graduate Institute of Business Administration at National Chung Hsing University, and climate expert Peng Qi-ming also introduced additive-free real food and low-carbon diets, helping participants understand climate change and work together to do their part for the environment.