NBA Asks Kids to Upcycle

NBA Asks Kids to Upcycle

Does your kid want to go green with the pros?

The NBA, in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Green Sports Alliance, has founded NBA Green, a program for raising money and awareness for environmental issues.

One of the main results of this program is the existence, now, of many fetching photos of professional basketball players gardening. Such big muscles they have, pushing those heavy wheelbarrows! Such big, dirty hands, transplanting that vegetable start! Aww, and that one’s teaching a little kid how to repot a rosemary bush!

Ahem.

And from now until Earth Day, along with getting all hot and sweaty out in the garden, NBA Green is also sponsoring “Reimagination!”, encouraging kids to upcycle with an interactive, STEM-heavy web site that asks kids to collect two or more used or discarded objects and combine them into something useful and new.

There aren’t any prizes for playing, but kids and their adults can upload photos of their upcycled creations to the site, where some will be featured.

Now, maybe you’re all, “I don’t need a hot, sweaty, shirtless (fine, they’re not actually shirtless) professional basketball player to encourage my kid to upcycle. My kid makes telephone wire galimotos and candy wrapper bracelets just fine without the NBA’s help!” And I hear you–my kid this week made an honest-to-god catapult out of an orange juice cap, a paperclip, and some duct tape. She shot dried beans at my head while I tried to write a blog post.

But here’s the thing: some kids DO need the NBA to teach them to upcycle. Kids’ role models are who they are, and so much the better for those kids if their role models are talking up eating local and buying organic rather than tossing plastic Powerade bottles into the garbage. Or hanging out in strip clubs. Or whatever questionable activities they indulge in when not running around wearing shorts and tank tops.

So if your kid likes basketball, but maybe doesn’t yet like doing upcycling craft projects with you, THIS is your entry! Before you know it, you’ll both be happily surrounded by bottle caps and old shoes of your own, creating the world’s first… sneaker tap shoe? Planter/wind chime?

I’m sure you’ll come up with something great.

[kids playing basketball image via Shutterstock]

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