Kids Become Habitat Heros

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CALLS ON A MILLION KIDS...TO BECOME "HABITAT HEROES"!

Preserving animal habitats is the focus of National Geographic's annual conservation public-awareness campaign this year. Geography Action 2003! Habitats: Home Sweet Home hopes to persuade a million kids to become "Habitat Heroes" by taking action to preserve the wild places that birds, animals and plants call home.

Today as many as a third of all plant and animals species in the United States are at risk of becoming extinct, but simple actions, such as recycling just one aluminum can a day, can help save their habitat and their lives.

Students, teachers and parents will find a wide range of habitat-related information and activities, including in-depth discussion of what habitat loss means, how it can be prevented and what individuals can do to help, at the program's website http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geographyaction/. The site encourages students to learn about habitats firsthand by visiting one of the 540 National Wildlife Refuges in the United States, a 95 million-acre network of protected lands.

Also included on the Web site are hands-on habitat-conservation activities, contests, games and links to other conservation Web sites. A comprehensive calendar lists habitat-conservation activities nationwide.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio started the call to habitat-conservation action in the April 2003 issue of National Geographic Kids magazine, inviting readers to join the Society's million-kid movement to protect the Earth by pledging online to become a "Habitat Hero." This Web site suggests ways kids can protect the environment, such as recycling magazines or cans, planting a butterfly garden, pulling up invasive species or carpooling to school.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are partners in this year's Geography Action program.

The FWS manages the National Wildlife Refuge System.