If you have a cub scout or boy scout yor probably receive Boy’s Life Magazine. For the past several issues, they’ve had green topics featured: green vehicles, ocean and reef conservation, eco-friendly fun, and sporting green.

The newest edition, September 2008, features a whole section called “Be a Green Guy”. It has five projects, some of which my family is definitely going to be trying out (both guys and gals).

The projects include a compost tumbler, a compact garden, a “10,000-Year-Old” Lamp Shade, a rain barrel and a solar hot dog cooker. It’s a little late in the year for the compact garden but I think we’ll give that a try in the spring, I’m always looking for great ways to grow even more food. And the hot dog cooker…maybe, we’ll see… it sounds interesting.

My daughter wants to make the lamp. I knew she would. It sounds like a fun family project.

The projects I really want to try are the compost tumbler and the rain barrel.

I’ve been wanting my husband to set up a rain barrel for quite awhile now but he wasn’t sure how to make one, and I kept forgetting to look up directions online. Now he has no more excuses.

The compost tumbler sounds great. My husband and teenage son can make one of those in no time.  Currently, I just have a compost pile in my back yard that never seems to make it to the garden (Jessica, I feel your composting pain), because the wildlife runs off with most of the food scraps that get added to the pile: potato peels, carrots, apple cores, corn cobs…everything disappears.  I just wasn’t sure what kind of compost container that I needed, barrel, square bin, fenced off spot… This project sounds perfect and it’s something we can work on together. Now perhaps I can actually have a composter that makes compost for the garden and not just food for the wildlife.

I love that everyone is really getting into the green things. Get the kids involved while they’re young, and they’ll grow up and be great conservationists. I hope to see more everyday kid’s publications featuring green topics and projects.

Image: http://www.boyslife.org/hobbies-projects/projects/4845/make-a-10000-year-old-lamp-shade/

[This post was written by Wenona Napolitano.]