Background Article

As the Church continually states in her teachings on stewardship, we have an obligation to respect and care for God’s creation. There is, fortunately, a growing awareness that we need to make greater efforts to conserve our natural resources, recycle what we can, and be less wasteful in general. God calls us to be good stewards of every gift has has given us. Stewardship involves governments, corporations, communities, families, and individuals.

“I would like to ask all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill: let us be ‘protectors’ of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment.”

Pope Francis, Inauguration, 3/19/13

One of the greatest gifts of creation is the tremendous variety of animal and plant life on our planet. We are finally learning that these, too, should be used prudently. Many medicines are derived from rare plants, and the benefits we gain from these plants, are important to human life. We need to be concerned not only about people, but all living things, because all of God’s creation is a gift.

• Do I appreciate and respect the beauty of various kinds of plants and animals?
• How do I show this respect and live out the call to protect God’s creation?

Links
Environment Justice Program
From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

CST 101 | Care for God’s Creation
From Catholic Relief Services YouTube

Photo by mypubliclands

Unit Activity

Bring in a tree leaf, flower, rock, container of water, and any other created object that may be of interest to the children. Sit together in a circle. Pass around each object. Encourage the children to share what it feels like, its color, and how it help us to live. Do this with each object. Close with a discussion on how all of these things were created by God. God made them to help us enjoy his Creation. Explain to the children that each of us has a responsibility to protect God’s Creation.

Give each child a piece of paper and crayons or markers. Encourage the children to think of ways they could share the beauty of flowers with others, or the beauty of rocks, or etc. Have them draw a picture of their favorite flower, or created object. Send their pictures home with the children to share the beauty of God’s Creation with their families.

Photo by Nanagyei

Unit Activity

How we take care of the space we live and work in demonstrates our responsibilities to one another. We can show respect to one another by respecting our shared space.

Caring for the parish or school grounds is a responsibility in which children can be involved in. Work together to create slogans describing responsible actions. These can be made into posters or “bumper stickers.” They could involve actions such as: not littering, protecting plants, not bullying anyone on the playground, including others in games. The children will be able to add more ideas to this list of possibilities. Select the best ideas and create posters to display in the proper areas. Discuss the rights that are connected to these responsibilities.

Ask the children to think about their rights and duties. Invite them to share ideas of ways they can protect their rights and fulfill their duties – at home and at school. Help them to understand the rights to food, clothing, shelter, and safety that they have. Note that family chores and homework are some of their responsibilities, or duties.

Photo by JeepersMedia

Unit Activity

Assign each child to make an “inventory” of all the things he or she has at home that are not necessities. Clarify that food, clothing, and shelter are necessities of life for everyone. Have them list all the games, toys, and electronic devices they have. Instruct them to be thorough in their search.

Have the children bring their lists to the next session. Ask if they are surprised at how much “stuff” they actually possess. Then have them individually go through their lists to find things to trade or share with others. Perhaps some items will need repair or cleaning first. Together, decide on a way to share these items with others, perhaps at a day care, shelter, or nearby parish or school. Discuss how such sharing is an example of stewardship of God’s creation.

Talk about ways that reusing items helps protect the earth. Then see who can come up with the most ways to reuse a plastic bag (e.g., holding small toy pieces, cleaning up table scraps, lining wastebaskets, cleaning up behind pets), a brown paper bag (wrapping paper, mailing packages, covering books), cans (cleaning and using to hold pencils or small items), magazines (making collages or greeting cards, using pages as pictures to frame, sharing with others).

Photo by The Tire Zoo

Unit Activity

Many children today are becoming involved in helping to care for the environment. Have the children in your group brainstorm a list of things that fifth graders can do to help care for God’s gift of Creation. Some suggestions are tuning off lights after leaving a room; tending a garden; recycling aluminum, plastic, and paper products; giving old toys and games to a younger sibling, cousin, or neighbor; composting leaves; not littering.) Have the children report back on their progress.

Have each child identify two reasons why he or she thinks caring for Creation is one of our basic duties as Christians. Then have the children work individually or as a group to compose a prayer of thanksgiving to God for giving us our beautiful world.

Photo by rkramer62

Unit Activity

Have participants select one school day during the coming week to keep track of items that make up their own lunch. Have them list the items and how each could be reused or recycled (e.g., reuse lunch bag, take home apple core for composting, recycle juice/milk box, plastic, paper). During follow-up discussion, find out how many actually did reuse or recycle their lunch items. Discuss the experience.

To the motto “Reduce, Recycle, Reuse,” Catholics can add a fourth, “Respect.” Respect for God’s creation urges us to follow through with being good stewards. Consider problems such as littering, polluting the air, dumping hazardous waste, wasting electricity or water. Have participants describe one action your family, group, or community can take to become better stewards of God’s creation. Invite the group to create and design their own motto.

Photo by Joi