It’s quite hard to explain in text how to do this, so I’ve found a nice little video for your kid to watch:

So watch that video a few times and get your kid to practice making the windmill a few times. Once your kid is proficient, he or she can demonstrate to the class, and soon everyone will start inventing their own kinds of windmills. Hopefully that will give some inspiration for them to go and make the real thing.

Get your kid to collect used plastic bottles from your house or from your neighbors. Even better, get everyone in your suburb to contribute their used plastic bottles to your kid instead of just throwing them away. Before long he or she will have too many!

Most plastic bottles are largest in diameter at the bottom and gradually decrease towards the top. Find a spot midway between the center and the top of the bottle, just before the diameter starts getting smaller, and cut completely around the bottle. Now you have created a relatively large space. That’s basically all you need to do. But read on…

So now your kid has invented a new type of pot. The best use of this pot is for plants. Now if you and your kid want to take this further, go to your local garden center. Ask someone knowledgeable about plants that propagate easily, reduce soil erosion, and that are effective in capturing and storing carbon. Now get some soil and compost and plant these in your recyclable pots. There’s much more to growing a plant than this, so get some advice from the expert. Who knows, your kid may even be able to start an environmentally friendly project, or even a business out of distributing or selling these recyclable pots with plants that help reduce our carbon footprint.

All you need is a white flower and a bit of food coloring. White carnations are quite easy to find. Take a glass jar or see-through plastic container and fill it with water. Now for the food coloring. Your kid can get really creative ‘inventing’ new color combinations, or you can stick with one color color. Bright colors will give the best results. Now cut a little bit of stem off the flower and place the flower in the jar or container.

You will find that after about 24 hours the color of the flower has changed. The stem has essentially absorbed the food coloring in the water, and the flowers have magically changed their colors.

If this is for a school inventing project, then your kid should be going for maximum visual impact, as he or she will be awarded marks for this. So sometimes it’s a good idea to create multiple different colored flowers. Start off by placing each flower in its own jar with different colored food coloring. At the presentation (make sure its on the day of the presentation, ideally do this as soon as possible before presenting), put the flowers all in one container or jar of normal uncolored water. Now you’ve got a nice looking presentation, and your kid has just invented a new flower!

So this invention idea is one that teaches kids about the environment by getting them to figure out ways to protect it.

Here are two approaches to get the kids started in the invention process:

Sustainable Energy

Sustainable energy is a very hot topic at the moment. There’s ample room for invention, and in fact inventive methods of sustainable energy are critical. Kids first need to understand that many of our current methods of harnessing electricity are in fact depleting the sources of that energy, such as our use and depletion of fossil fuels. Furthermore, the burning of substances like fossil fuels is very harmful to our environment. So what we need to try and figure out is how to harness electricity in ways that firstly do not deplete the sources of that energy, and secondly do not harm our environment.

To help kids get started on inventing new methods of sustainable energy, explain potential sources of energy: wind power, solar power,  or water power (hydro power). Then get them to think of ways to harness the energy inherent in those sources.

Energy efficiency

Another approach to inventing a greener future is for kids to think up ideas on how to be more energy efficient. How can they reduce their use of electricity at home? Or at school? How can they use less energy resources in the activities they perform? The scope here is enormous. Keep the kids’ immediate environment in mind here: this will keep them more focused on practical ideas that they can implement.

How could they go into the community, and help shopping centers, restaurants, shops, communities and clubs become more energy efficient?

So with the two approaches above, kids can get really creative in coming up with solutions. What is great is that if the solutions are practical, the kids can begin implementing them immediately. Imagine if every kid began to think in this way, they would surely be securing their own future.