Yesterday on Twitter (you are following us on Twitter, right?) we got to wondering (out loud, and in 140 characters, naturally) what would be the most environmentally-friendly coffee to pursue.

This is one of those iddy biddy things you may not think about. But many of us start the day with a cup (or three) of coffee, and it matters. It matters because there’s a lot of ecological damage that happens when rainforests are clear-cut to make room for more coffee fields, and it matters because paper cups from coffee shops are filling up the trash. So what’s a java lover to do?

Obviously, brewing at home and using your own reusable drinking vessels is a good start, but seeking out beans grown in a sustainable, earth-friendly manner is part of it, too. I really like this piece at Eat. Drink. Better. explaining the various terms and what they mean. Like, did you know that the USDA allows a product to label itself “organic” even if it’s only 30% organic? I sure didn’t.

When it comes to greener coffee, organic or not is only a part of the story. You also want to consider whether it was shade-grown (which allows for less deforestation and less disturbance of the local ecosystems) and Fair Trade (which keeps farmers from having to grow more and more just to make a decent wage), as well. There are many factors to consider, is my point, and the above-referenced article covers them in an informative and easy to understand way.

Now I’m sort of wondering about the ecological impact of the tea I drink, too, but I think I need to finish this cup of coffee before I can start thinking about that.

Remember when I told you about the Care and Share contest being run by The Weather Channel Kids in partnership with Idbids and others? Well, the contest ran, and the winners have been announced.

The class winners hail from Curlew Creek Elementary in Palm Harbor, Florida—their project was titled S.I.S.T.E.R Earth (Stop Idling Save The Earth’s Resources). They tackled the bane of my existence, the carpool line! Evidently their efforts to reduce idling cars while waiting in line for school pick-ups were quite impressive.

The family winners are the Northrops of Dunwoody, Georgia, who’ve been protecting their local watershed by cleaning up trash along the Chattahoochee River as part of the Rivers Alive Cleanup.

Congratulations to all the winners! I hear Waverly is headed to the beach to hang out at Curlew Creek, and if any of the winners don’t want the Ben & Jerry’s portion of their prize winnings, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Because, um, I’d hate for that ice cream to go to waste. Yes. That’s it. I’m just trying to reduce and reuse. This has absolutely nothing to do with my addiction to Cherry Garcia. Ahem.

It’s finally here—today is Earth Day!

How will you celebrate?

Maybe you’d like to send a few free Earth Day e-cards to those you love; I promise they have just an iddy biddy carbon footprint, and no trees were harmed in their creation.

Or maybe you’d like to try some recycled tinfoil (yes, really), but you’ve noticed it’s pretty pricey, at the store. Reynolds is willing to let you try it for free, so you can decide if you like it (or if you just want to save some money).

Need some other ideas of green resources and/or steps you can take today? Msnbc has a great round-up of suggestions—I particularly like 70 Park Avenue Hotel’s new Eco-Step Challenge. (If ever you needed an excuse to hit NYC….)

Of course, surely you already have your Idbids gear, but if not, it’s always a good time to shop the Idbids Store for all sorts of earth-friendly Idbids merchandise.

Let’s all keep working towards making it Earth Day, every day!

Sometimes I come across something online where I think, “Wow, that is such a good idea. I’m totally going to start doing that!” It’s thanks to the wonders of the Internet that I learned about rain barrels. And square-foot gardening. And lots of other things which I feel have raised my eco-IQ, as it were.

Without the Internet, I probably wouldn’t be baking my own bread. (I used to think baking was scary. I don’t know why. And sure, I have cookbooks, but being able to read about people’s personal experience—particularly folks saying, “This recipe was so easy! Thanks!”—helped me to brave a new undertaking.) My point is, there’s a lot to be said for having such easy access to both information and the experiences of others. Going green in small steps is made a lot easier when you can compare notes and get ideas from people all over the planet.

But sometimes I read about people taking big, radical steps… and sometimes I’m impressed, and other times… well… here, I’ll let you be the judge: Have you heard of freeganism? The good news is that they’re sort of uber-recyclers. The bad news is that they eat out of the trash. Yes. I want to applaud their ingenuity, their eco-consciousness, their resourcefulness. I do. But… they eat trash.

(Here’s to smaller steps, the kind that don’t make me gag.)

My children have always helped me in the garden, even when they were iddy biddy things and “helped” by kneeling beside me with their plastic tools, pretending to weed. Nowadays, they can do actual weeding (much to their chagrin), and they help with the watering and harvesting. (You understand that by “harvesting” I mean that my son eats handfuls of parsley until his tongue turns green, and my daughter pops tomatoes in her mouth while assuring me that it’s okay because more will grow, Mom, and this one was bruised, honest.)

This is the first time that one of my children has owned their own garden plant, though. My son’s class is participating in Bonnie’s 3rd grade cabbage program this year. So he came home with a cabbage and informed me that he was going to take care of it all by himself.

I was game. We set aside the necessary 4-foot square and planted it and darned if my son isn’t taking this all very seriously. He checks on it every day, and waters it when necessary, and looks it over for bugs, and chats with me about fertilizer. He’s started asking me things like, “Why don’t we grow all of our own food?” (answer: “Hey, look over there… something shiny!”) and “How big do you think my cabbage will get?” (answer: “Really big. We’ll eat it for a week straight!”). He’s having a great time, and I’d admit to getting more than a few chuckles out of listening to him talk to his “baby.”

Now I just need to find the perfect recipe, because I haven’t the heart to tell him that every time I’ve fed him cabbage in the past, he didn’t like it.

I confess that… I am not very good with moderation. I’ve always been about black and white and not so much about gray. It’s not intentional, it’s just how I am.

And so, shamefully, I admit that long ago there was a time when I didn’t even recycle because it was “too much trouble.” Fast forward to today, and I’m the Plastic Police. I pull things out of the trash and scold my family for not rinsing and recycling. All or nothing, baby.

Last year, my husband built us a 35-gallon rain barrel. Our area has been in a pretty significant drought for the last few years, so I only planted a few things and used the water from the barrel to keep them watered, but this year I planted a lot more. So I asked him to make me another barrel.

He came home this weekend with three 55-gallon drums and rigged us up an additional containment system, much to my delight. And you’d think that with an extra 165 gallons of preserved water, I’d be a happy camper, right? Well, it’s been raining all night and all morning, and I went to check on the barrels, and they’re all full. Water is gushing out of the overflows, and it’s still raining.

Instead of being happy, I found myself wondering how many more containers I could set out to catch that other, wasted water. You know, because 200 gallons of preserved rain water might not be enough. (I know. Don’t say it.)

Yesterday I was surfing around the web and came across an article about Segway’s Project P.U.M.A., which at first glance looks like the lovechild of an electric wheelchair and a fancy bike trailer. It is, however (as you might’ve guessed from the picture), a two-passenger, souped-up version of a Segway. That means it runs on battery power (clean and green), has a zero turn radius, and the hope is that it will become a viable transportation option for the masses.

Now, the Segway itself hasn’t exactly become mainstream, but it lacks several things the P.U.M.A will provide (cover, ability to bring a passenger, and higher speed capability). And the marketing on this, already, years before it may be available to the public, has been really smart—the idea is that it’s an urban option, ideal for relatively short distances and easy to park due to its compact size.

And I’m going to admit, right here, that maybe I’m missing something because I’m not a city-dweller, but I wonder what impact—if any—this will have on city congestion when there are already lots of great transportation options like the subway (not as green, I suppose, except that it carries so many people and removes parking congestion) and bicycles (not always practical, I know).

I can’t stop watching this video of the P.U.M.A. in action, though. It’s pretty slick-looking. I don’t really see myself driving one to the grocery store (my kids would have to draw straws to see who’d be relegated to the roof), but who knows? Maybe in ten years, they’ll be a common sight in cities.

I’m not entirely sure how it got to be April already, but it did. And that means we’re headed towards Earth Day! Of course, we’re trying to teach our kids that every day is Earth Day, but it is nice to have a commercially-sanctioned time to be extra-vigilant about our role in preserving the earth.

PBS KIDS GO! is pulling out all the stops this year—in addition to highlighting their new show The GREENS (a great show for kids about sustainability and green living), they’ve put up an Earth Day channel on their video site, where kids can watch episodes of The GREENS as well as earth-themed episodes of other PBS favorites like Maya and Miguel and Curious George.

That’s a great place to get even the youngest kids exciting about taking care of our planet… for Earth Day, and every day.

And parents, you’re not off the hook—check out the PBS Parents Expert Q&A Blog all month long; for the first half of the month, questions will be fielded by Dr. Alan Fortescue (of the Earthwatch Institute and advisor to The GREENS), and for the second half of April, Halle Stanford (Executive Vice President of Children’s Entertainment for The Jim Henson Company and an Executive Producer on Sid the Science Kid) will be answering questions. Don’t just talk the talk, parents. There’s plenty for us to learn, too, and plenty of resources out there to help us do it. Iddy biddy steps for all!

I’ll bet we can make Earth Day last the entire month (at least).

My kids love nothing more than an online game with an incorporated community. They’re all about Webkinz and Club Penguin, but as a parent I feel like playing Cash Cow isn’t exactly educational. I know that not everything can (or has to be) educational, but when fun meets learning, we’re all happy.

That’s why I’m digging the new Habitat Heroes site—an eco-conscious destination for kids dubbed “Club Penguin meets Greenpeace.”

Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

Habitat Heroes™ is an interactive web destination where children can adopt an animal from an endangered species, and create a life for it, while also playing games, reading fun facts about the planet, and communicating with other young environmentalists. Children select and personalize animal avatars to represent them on the site, and decorate the habitats where their avatars live. The number of avatars for a specific species on the site corresponds to the number of members of that species existing in the real world. For instance, only 3600 members who sign-up can choose the black rhinoceros as their avatar, corresponding to the 3600 black rhinoceros in existence. The site will introduce a new endangered species once the old one is retired.

Check out all of the charities they support, too. I can’t wait to let my kids loose and see how they like it.