I have to admit, I’m one of those people who watch advert, cartoons and short clips. Well not all of them but only those that I find are funny, different and meaningful – that means they have to carry a message across, a message that I am able to understand and agree with. Most of the time you’ll find that advertisements/clips/cartoons are silly and meaningless with an irritating/catchy repetitive tune – these don’t appeal to me or the public in general but they work by digging deep into the sub-conscious memory through the ‘irritating and repetitive’ tune/key words or flash of colours.
But what I have here today are some eco-conscious advertisements or rather short educational clips that are both appealing and educational. No, just because it has the word eco in it, it doesn’t mean boring is the associating word. In fact these are short educational clips that your kids will have no problems understanding or watching over and over again.
The Animals Save the Planet by Animal Planet
The Animals Save the Planet is an ingenious collection of short clips designed to educate about caring for the environment through the use of a cast of very friendly and just as adorable animal characters. There’s:
- Stanley the cow
- Norman the hippo
- Jolly the jellyfish
- Reg the polar bear
- Dennis the lion
- Freda the orang utan
- Spot the leopard
- Ed, Ted, Jed, Ned, Fred, Mick, Nick, Dick, Rick and Vick Smith a family of meerkats.
Presently there are 11 short clips, each covering a specific and very close to home environmental issue (water and energy conservation, pollution, recycling etc). You can view them here on a website hosted using 100% pure solar energy.
Rustle the Leaf by Dan Wright and Dan Ponce
Rustle the Leaf is an online outreach that uses syndication-quality, comic strips and other creative tools to communicate essential environmental themes and truths to the general public. With a cast of the following characters to subtly spring forward the green message (such as recycle your old cell phones, global warming, facts about chlorine, etc) Rustle the Leaf is an endearing eco-warrior:
Rustle the Leaf™
Rooty™ the acorn sprout
Dandy™ the dandelion seed
Paige™ Precipitation
With 4 animated short clips, a comic archive and monthly lesson plans to share, Rustle the Leaf is something you definitely want your kids to watch.
