SKY DAY ACTIVITIES!
Want to help the environment? Here’s a great approach to thinking about how inspired by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. (1) Make a list of things you could do (2) Which of those projects would give you the most joy? (3) What resources do you have that you could use for your chosen project?
ALL AGES:
Be a SkyDay citizen artist!
SkyDay citizen artists uses their vision and talents to inspire us all to care more about climate and sky. Like taking part in Airspace. Get outside, look up and reflect on what sky and climate mean to you. Then take cool pictures and post them to the Airspace to show you can be counted among those who want to come together to achieve positive outcomes with climate. Better yet, gather your community and create your own free Airpace! (Airspace Sign Up). How does our dynamic sky look right now where you live? Check out other Airspaces to see how it is changing in London, Zimbabwe - the world. What do you notice? What are you curious about?
What does the sky mean to you?
Sky Day is a day to reflect on our relationship to climate and sky. A day to talk about it, make art about, share our feelings and take actions in community.
What our sky means to you? #skydayproject
Help a local species struggling with climate change
Climate change isn’t coming. It’s already here and damaging the habitats of beautiful species near you. So this Sky Day check out your local US Fish and Wildlife Service and Nature Conservancy websites to find out which animals and plants are struggling near you and how you can help. You’ll be helping us humans too because everything on earth is inter-connected.
Calling All Artists
The job of the artist is to move culture forward and the job of the citizen artist is to serve community by engaging people on the issues that matter the most. So use your talent, your vision, your creativity to engage your community on the crucial issues of climate change and ecological citizenship. For inspiration, listen to Umesh Bajagain (Nepal), Celia Berrell (Australia) and Dan Simpson (England) share their work for Sky Day on WBEZ Chicago’s Worldview.
How do we know it’s us
warming the world
(and not something else?)
An important question that deserves an honest answer. We now know a great deal about the ‘climate forcing agents’ that have changed earth’s climate in the distant past and are doing so now. Have your students study this interactive graph published in Bloomberg Businessweek. It uses findings from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies to show how much different factors, natural and industrial, have contributed to global warming between 1880 and 2014. Then open things up for discussion. Did anything surprise anyone?
New! Jelena’s Sky Scavenger Hunt!
This great idea for Pre-K through Second Grade from Jelena, one of our fab Sky Day volunteers. Give your kiddos a couple days to hunt down each of the sky experiences shown. Then ask them to find these very sky photos hidden somewhere in the Sky Galleries of Sky Day Project! Download and print this pdf. Can you find them all?!!
Help Your Local Forest Preserve
Trees are one of nature’s best climate solutions because trees take carbon out of the atmosphere and lock it away! In fact, trees are a prime example of a ‘Natural Climate Solution.’ So volunteer to help your local Forest Preserve thrive. They are looking for individuals and groups to help out all the time!
Interview Family and Friends
One of the best ways to help with climate change is just to talk to people like parents, friends and family. Be curious. What are they thinking? Are they concerned? Share with them what you know and what your concerns are.
Our advice - be respectful and a good listener. Consider sharing what you learn on Instagram or Twitter - #ComeTogetherForClimate. Did the conversation surprise you in any way?
Hold a Sky Concert
Unclouded Day, The New Trier Concert Choir
CO2, Jim and the Povolos
Nothing moves us like music. Use your talents - your voice - to reconnect us to our magnificent sky and celebrate the way it connects us all as one global family. You will have done your community a great service for we only protect the things we care about and only care about the things we are connected to.
Host a Sky Show and help with climate change
This idea from teachers Diane and Stephanie. Their students saw the sky photos sent in to Sky Day Project by a school in Puerto Rico just before they were hit by Hurricane Maria. They wanted to help so they painted sky paintings, exhibited them and then sold them to family and friends to raise money for that school. To which we say - Bravo! Why not do something similar yourself and donate the funds you raise to a worthy climate helping cause like donating to a carbon offsetting charity? The sky’s the limit to what you can do to help!
Plant a Tree
(Better yet, plant two)
It sounds so simple doesn’t it? And maybe you’ve hear it before? But the fact remains, if you really want to help counter the effects of all that carbon dioxide in the air then plant a tree or two for Sky Day. Trees can remove as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Learn more.
Lightning Critiques of
Environmentalist Art
This idea suggested by high school science teacher John C. His students really enjoyed changing gears for a day and talking about art. So ask your students to search the web for art that deals in some way with sky, climate change or the environment. Then ask them to show a slide of it in class and talk about it for three minutes. What is the art conveying? How do they respond to it?
No rules! Just lots of appreciation for whatever they have to say.
Switch to a more
Climate Friendly Diet
Shoot for the Moon
In this cool video Nick and Meredith of Chicago's Adler Planetarium show you how to take awesome night sky photos using a DSLR camera! Then upload yours to SkyDayProject! We can't wait to see them!
Write a Sky-ku
While a poem cannot scrub away the pollution in our atmosphere, no-one should underestimate the power of the written word. Sky-ku are inspired by haiku and are a beautiful way to express your thoughts and feelings about our amazing shared sky. Learn more
Take a Sky Walk
Sometimes the simplest things mean the most. So gather students, friends and family and go for a Sky Walk. Is there somewhere near you where you can share an awesome view of the sky? And while you walk, notice together how every day is a unique symphony of light and atmosphere unfolding right above our heads. Maybe ask the group to share a memory of when they once noticed the sky in some special way. Take a moment to reflect on how much we rely on our thin atmosphere functioning naturally every day. Doesn’t it only stand to reason we should take care of it for each other?
Tell Your Story
A friend was driving to her father’s funeral through a very heavy rain storm with a very heavy heart. She remembers the clouds and the eerie darkness. It felt to her as if the sky grieved with her. And then, all of a sudden, there was a break in the clouds and she saw a magnificent rainbow. The sight of it filled her heart with a new sense of inner peace. It hadn’t replaced her grief, of course, but something had changed within her and she has never forgotten that moment.
Is there a time in your life when the sky has impacted you in a personal and memorable way? Let us know @skydayproject (Twitter, Instagram)
