National Geographic - for kids!

National Geographic seems like it could be a good place to gain some inspiration in terms of environmentalism related activities and quizzes and whatnot, especially as it is successful and therefore should be quite a reliable source to gain inspo from.  

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/competition/find-out-your-clean-air-personality-and-win-a-gardening-starter-kit/ 

This quiz is kind of what I'm tying to look at - everyday life things;

I took the quiz to see what kinds of questions were included;

This is a great little quiz! All about everyday life and things you wouldn’t necessarily think about naturally which is a really good place to start, especially for the younger ages. It was interesting to see how it was set up - multiple choice, almost of which would/could be acceptable answers, to make it that bit easier and to give even MORE inspiration and ideas. I also like the imagery with each question, which is something I could do in an illustrative manner to make the questions that bit more interesting and engaging. I definitely want to include some form of quiz, I'm thinking spread throughout the book, with perhaps 2 questions for each character to answer, in a lift the flap or pull tab reveal system. 

This could be something interesting to include - little random but interesting facts here and there, potentially in letter format, addressed to the characters orrrr just there, as a way of getting some important facts in.

Kind of the boring bit but it's really important! Greta's book was all about the fact that society does not know that there is an issue and nothing is going to be done if no one is aware! Hence, explaining the issue in a matter of fact way but also kind of light hearted with no real intention of scaring the reader is really very important! My job here really is to draw the audience in enough to engage them with the facts, give them an idea of what they can do and to start thinking about what is important, to then take matters into their own hands and use the information/knowledge I have given them to do so. As I've said from the start, this book will very much be a starting point and education is said starting point!

A lot of the activities were a bit too out there in terms of materials needed - one of them required a hack saw! These two are moderately accessible but could do a few adjustments such as simply using water in the snow globes - it may not have quite the same effect but it's much easier to access and nice and affordable. This is the sort of thing I had in mind, just not quite so old school in terms of visuals and use of photos - I'll use illustrational instructions. 

Starting to think about how I could create visuals for the book and the content of them and how I can bring facts into it in an interesting manner. All very initial but I’m already seeing ways that my previous illustrations, like the littering could come into the book, That’s promising for sure because I really like what I’m creating thus far. I need to do more research, ground research specifically to keep it relatively simple and easy to understand (I don’t fully understand everything that I have read) to develop visuals. I really need to look into what would happen to the world without nature and the long term effect it would/could have because I think that is what the basis for this book will be - why we need to protect the natural world we live on so much. From there I can think about how to go about visualising what we need to do and how to make that interactive!.. I think I may be getting somewhere.