Earth Day: a simplistic day to celebrate the place we call home by showing off the places and landmarks around the world. We are shown videos, documentaries, and even TV specials celebrating this day. And for a moment, us humans pat ourselves on the back, praising ourselves for protecting the Earth’s beauty for so many years. Earth Day sounds like a great day… but do we even know what day it is on? 

I think I can advocate for a lot of people and admit that we don’t know what day Earth Day falls on, which really proves the importance our society, but more specifically, our school system puts on this so called “special” day. I get it, Earth Day is not a major day, often being just meant for elementary school students to paint pictures of trees and to watch an episode of the Magic School Bus focusing on recycling, failing to get the message across that our planet is in need of repairs. Even though it is a small day, should it be? 

I find it very surprising that in our day and age, schools don’t use this day to create an educational platform to teach the next generation of adults’ ways to improve our planet. Even though anyone with some source of the internet are exposed to the major environmental problems every nation faces today, it does not correlate to their knowledge of how to combat those issues. According to Recycling Today, 73 percent of Americans say they could be more knowledgeable about recycling, with 43 percent finding it difficult to recycle. Not to mention their purchases of plastic proves how little we are educated of its negative effects, as per The Balance SMB Americans use 102.1 billion plastic bags per year.  

It shows through statistics that the generations before us did not get taught the fundamentals of protecting and preserving our planet in school. Not to mention that the kids who are currently in school are supposedly the last generation that can save our planet and now they’re not being taught how to save it but are still being pressured to fix past generation’s mistakes. Although the pressure of saving our world only sounds like something coming straight out of a dystopian movie and too big of an obstacle to tackle, there still is hope. 

To eliminate these statistics, schools need to start acknowledging environmental topics at a young age. Just like the ABC’s and 123’s, elementary students need to start remembering their three R’s; reuse, reduce, recycle. As ambiguous as that saying may be to kindergartener’s who don’t even understand the meaning of those three words, schools need to put an emphasis of what and how to recycle, along with other issues. I’m not taking a stance to scare little kids that our world and their favorite animals are doomed for the worse but educating important matters at a young age will progress into a yearning to take action. 

It’s not the fact we need to glorify Earth Day to such a huge extent, it just stands as a reminder that school system’s and their administrators don’t put into account the growing need of attention for our planet. We shouldn’t put all the attention just onto this one special day, the ideals and practices should be implemented all year round. So, when April 22 comes along, remember the reason why we celebrate Earth Day; to acknowledge the beauty of our planet and to keep it that way.