Turn kids green for the hols

AAH, it's the summer holidays again. Endless weeks of trying to keep the little horrors entertained - and of trying to get them to do something more active and constructive than sit in front of the Xbox or Playstation all day.

Well, here's an idea.

Why not turn your children into environmentally-conscious Superkids, filled with a burning desire to save the planet?

Wildlife, nature and the environment have always been cool for kids, and if you can spark their interest, there is plenty of scope for healthy outdoor activity too.

Step forward Norwich Union. The life and pensions company - whose massive Life Assurance arm is based in York - has commissioned a new book for eight to12-year-olds, which aims to do just that.

Super Kids, written by freelance science writer and broadcaster Sasha Norris, is full of startling information about the damage we're doing to the planet - and a host of fun activities aimed at giving your children a renewed sense of wonder about nature.

Best of all, it's written in a hip, street-smart style that makes a concern for the planet cool and pits environmentally-conscious kids against 'Zombie' adults, who by their laziness and lack of thought are destroying the environment.

"Help! The Zombie Adults are messing up the world!" the book's jacket says. "They're killing our animals, wasting our water, destroying our trees, poisoning our food... What can we do? Who can save the day?"

The answer, of course, is kids. Super Kids is packed with information about pollution, environmental degradation, disappearing wildlife and wasted energy.

And it is full of tips for youngsters to help them do something about it.

"You walk into the living room and there's your Zombie Mum, about to spray furniture polish on to the sideboard," the book says.

"STOP HER! She might be making the inside of your house smell like roses or a summer's day, but by assaulting your lungs with unnecessary chemicals, she could also be putting you more at risk of suffering from asthma. Remind your mum how important breathing is, and that it could affect her too." On the same page is a Super Kids Superfact (they're sprinkled throughout the book): "One in eight children has asthma in the UK. This figure has increased six-fold in the last 25 years."

If you're worried this might all make your child a bit confrontational: don't be. Super Kids has thought of that, and encourages youngsters to be patient with ignorant grown-ups.

"Your poor Zombie parents are probably stuck," the book says. "They have grown up unaware of their impact on the world. They march through life, tired and overstretched, sitting in traffic jams, staring at computers, watching the washing machine go round and round.

"But Zombie Adults don't need telling off. They desperately need our help. They need explaining the right way to go about things. And they need information that can help lift them out of Zombiness and back into humanity."

With the help of this book, your kids are going to be the ones who can wake you up to the world's troubles and put you back on the right track. They'll still be using pester power, hopefully: but now they'll be pestering you to recycle more or have a compost heap in the bottom of the garden, rather than buy them the latest expensive pair of designer trainers. Which has to be good.

"We wanted to challenge kids to go out and do something to help the environment," says Allison Darling, Norwich Union's York-based corporate social responsibility manager.

"The idea of the book is to put it in their hands. They can find out what they can do to make a difference."

And you never know, we Zombie Adults could just learn a thing or two as well.

Super Kids by Sasha Norris is published by Think Books at £5.99. The book is available at most good bookshops or by post (with £1.50 p&p) from Green Books on 01803 863260.

:: In the garden

Build a pond - a great task for mum or dad to help you with.

Whether it's big or small it will be like a little world in itself for the creatures - frogs, toads, newts, fish, insects and birds - that come to live there.

You need to build it properly, though.

When you've dug your hole, you'll need to line it with something to keep the water in. Then you'll have to imagine yourself as a tiny frog or bird trying to get into the pond. It needs to slope gently downwards so you can waddle in and get a drink: and remember, you need to be able to get back out again!

Stock your pond with oxygen-giving plants like lilies - but leave out goldfish. They eat the eggs of wild animals like frogs, toads and newts.

Superfact: scientists who raised the temperature of ponds by 3 degrees C to mimic the effect of global warming found it wiped out all fish, small animals and plants.

Slugs and snails - they're great fun really, so do you need to kill them with nasty chemicals, which make them die a horrible death? Spread ash, beer or eggshell around your favourite plants to protect them. Then you can get to know your snails by numbering them on their hell with non-toxic paint, and following their escapades around your garden.

:: At home

Reducing rubbish - imagine there was a room in your house where you put anything you had finished with.

Old baked bean tins, toys you played with when you were five, the cat litter, shampoo bottles, old tins of paint. Imagine if you just made a huge pile of it and left it in the corner of your room. What a smell!

"Well, believe it or not, that is what the INSANE adults do with your rubbish when you put it into the bin," Super Kids says.

"Only instead of putting it in a corner of your room, the rubbish just goes into a big hole in a field."

Just think what the animals who used to live in that field think. So, try to get your mum and dad to reduce the amount of rubbish they throw in the bin. Here are a few ways to do it:

Recycle cans, bottles and old newspapers

Don't buy packaged food

Re-use plastic shopping bags

Superfact: every year in the UK, one person throws away 90 drinks cans, 107 bottles or jars, two trees' worth of paper, 70 food cans and 45kg of plastic.

:: Wild life

Your local park or the fields down by the river are all bursting with wildlife.

You have just got to learn to see it. Why not become an eco-detective, seeing how many different species of animal and plant you can spot around you - and working out exactly what the beetle crawling over your boot is?

You can easily get hold of guides to all sorts of plants and animals - worms, mushrooms, bugs, flowers, birds or trees - and they'll help you find the names and habits of all the creatures that share your park or garden with you.

Superfact: There are 56 different species of butterfly living in the UK. How many can you find - and how do you tell them apart?

:: More Superfacts

An estimated 40 per cent of all life in the sea has been destroyed during the last 25 years as a result of our pollution.

Feel like you're living in an urban jungle? Every day we lose more than 800 square miles of wildland in the world, as we build over it.

In Europe, three times as many people die from the bad effects of air pollution from cars as die in car accidents.

On average, planting five trees can off-set the harmful pollution caused by driving a car 12,000 miles.

A bee's wings beat an amazing 11,400 times a minute. And a bumblebee can carry 60 per cent of its own body weight in pollen.

During the past 45 years, a quarter of our hedgrows have been destroyed, at a rate of about 4,000 miles a year!

Updated: 09:06 Wednesday, July 27, 2005