Today I’m chatting to Helen and Joe, co-founders of EcoTales, who have been friends since meeting each other at school at the age of 12. EcoTales is a podcast for primary school children that aims to share nature knowledge and inspire future generations to love and defend the planet. And it does it brilliantly through stories and songs helped by a cast of 26 animated alphabet characters. There’s PolyPlastic and Willow Water and Etta Earth, who alongside all their friends, tell Eco-Tales to not only engage children but also to help us to start having some of these conversataions with  our own kids about some of the big issues we’re facing.
In  this episode we dig into how to talk to talk to our kids about the climate crisis without freaking them out, how to get older kids on board, what role schools should be playing in educating children about the future they might be facing and a whole host of other stuff. Now if that all sounds a bit heavy and hardcore, please don’t worry, it’s honestly not. It’s more a light hearted chin-wag over a cuppa, sharing our experiences with our own kids - things that have worked and some things that haven’t - when it comes to talking to them about the planet and the choices we're making.

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways:

• Children inherently care about nature
• Be as open as you can, and explain why you're making the choices you're making - obviously in an age appropriate way, and at a time when they're open to what you're saying (i.e. not in the middle of a meltdown in the supermarket about magazines/Kinder eggs/other assorted plastic crap)
• Encourage connections with nature
• Have the conversations naturally as they come up
• Older children/teenagers can be more difficult to engage but we can also be more open and honest with them about the impacts of our actions
• Easy actions include growing veg, feeding the birds, 'seed bombing', picking up litter, remembering to use reusable water bottles - all of these actions help our children to feel empowered rather than overwhelmed
• Join in with the #ecotalespromise - make a simple promise for the planetwith your kids and share on social media using the #ecotalespromise hashtag

'Poly Plastic' was made by professor Leo at Rock Laboratory and although she is useful, this cheeky superhero misfit must be handled with care!  Her unique superpowers make her indestructible and able to mould herself into any shape or object she wants. However, it is these very qualities that make her adventures into the wild so dangerous.  The question is, where will she end up next?

Useful links

• EcoTales
  - Website
  - Facebook
  - Instagram
  - Twitter
• "Gloop" - the award winning 'twisted fairytale' about the meteoric rise of plastic that Joe worked on
• Plastic-free(ish) party bags (blog post) 
• "Beebombs" Seedbombs
• EcoTales Warrior Project on the TES site
• Achieving Greenness - Joe and Helen's recommendation for a future guest