Episode 10. How Kids Change The World Through Earth Care with Donna Goodman

The water in your cup has a longer memory than you can imagine, and it is the very same water dinosaurs once drank. In this episode of The Fairy Podcast, we sit down with Donna Goodman, Founder of Earth Child Institute and a longtime UNICEF educator, to explore freshwater, children’s environmental leadership, and the powerful ways kids change the world. Along the way, we keep it simple, curious, and practical, so families can turn wonder into real Earth care.

In this episode, we explore:

• Donna’s path through Earth Child Institute and global work with children 
• Why children have the power to influence adults and communities 
• Research-backed stories of kids driving behavior change, like recycling 
• The closed water cycle and the idea of “dinosaur water” 
• Practical ways kids can help, including simple water testing 
• What kids around the world ask first and what it reveals about connection 
• EcoMasters and using stories to teach environmental stewardship 
• Mother Earth and Me and the tree practice for body kindness and self-love 

About Donna Goodman

Donna Goodman has worked to serve Mother Earth, her children, and waters for more than 36 years in more than 67 countries. It all started in 1999, when, as a single mom attending Jean Houston’s Mystery School, Donna was invited to the United Nations to teach Peace through Science using rainbow glasses and magnets to explore the invisible forces that guide our lives. The synchronicity of that first invitation led to the founding of Earth Child Institute (ECI), a US-based 501(c)3 not-for-profit, international organization dedicated to 'Empowering Today for A Sustainable Future for All’ in 2002. While young leaders from all over the world were leading Earth Child Institute on a day-to-day basis, Donna was employed by UNICEF as Program Advisor, Water, Environment and Sanitation, and later Climate Change Education. 

Before and after her United Nations career, Donna was nominated as one of the Top 100 Women in Franchising for her work as co-founder of Little Scientists – A Hands-On Approach to teach science to young children, and later served as Global Program Director for Swarovski Waterschool, overseeing a global network of school programs on the great rivers of the world. She was a consultant to Turner Broadcasting, Cartoon Network Latin America, and Program Developer for Kids1, a New Jersey-based company leading the way on school leadership for at-risk students in the United States.

Today, Donna is proud to be focusing on her work as the author of the middle-grade fiction series ECOMASTERS: A Planet in Peril, as well as on Mother Earth and Me teaching and learning materials. 

Born and raised in Connecticut, she is mom to three adult children and Nonna to five awesome grandchildren. 

Donna's Websites:

www.donnagoodman.com

www.ecomastersbooks.com 

www.earthchildinstitute.org

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Fairy Mail: https://www.winslowvail.com/fairy-mail/Fairy-School-Mail/

Music Credits: "Canon in D" by Johann Pachelbel performed and recorded by Winslow Vail. 

Transcript

Welcome To Fairy School

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Fairy Podcast with Winslow. My name is Winslow Vale, and I'm the founder of Fairy School. I'm here to create a safe space for you to explore your imagination, your heart magic, and the mysteries of the fairy worlds. This is a perfect time for you to connect with the fairies, to ask questions, share your dreams, and discover fairy practices and stories that can help you build more self-love, healthy happiness, and inner calm. The fairies are so glad you are here. As we begin, we invite you to take a deep breath into your belly, to relax your body, and to feel the curiosity flowing in your heart. Now, slip into your magical fairy clothes, feel your wings gently unfold, and awaken your fairy senses as you learn, imagine, and grow at fairy school.

Meet Donna Goodman’s Earth Work

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Welcome to the fairy podcast, Donna. It is so good to have you. We're here with Donna Goodman, and Donna, you have an incredible history of what you've done in your life and are doing. Working with children around the world, working and serving Mother Earth with the environment, sanitation, water, and so much more. You're a filmmaker and author. And that's just scratching the surface. So in this podcast, Donna is going to share, you're going to share a bit about your work with children, and we'll see where the fairies and nature take us. So thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Thank you so much for having me, Winslow. It's such an honor to be part of the fairy podcast. And hi to all of you that who are listening.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Thank you so much. So you do you want to tell us about since children are listening and adults, do you want to tell us to start just about some of your work with children around the world?

How Kids Influence Big Change

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Because you have worked with children from 67 countries.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

I founded an international organization called Earth Child Institute, which is all about kids in the environment all over the world. And it started out with teaching peace through science, bringing kids together around the world, and then I worked for UNICEF in water sanitation and hygiene education and child participation, and that became climate change education. And so all those countries you mentioned, Winslow, are places that I have been so blessed and honored to work with kids in their own communities and see their projects, see the things that they do, meet their teachers, see where they live, and give them the opportunity to ask me questions, which has mostly informed all of the work that I have done all of these years, because you guys, the kids, are the wisdom of so much of what we need to do. The stewards of the earth.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

And for children, because I think there's a when you're a child, sometimes you feel like you don't have any power. Like the adults seem to make the decisions. There's a lot of things you might feel like you have to do as a kid, but you always remind children that they have power. And can you speak a bit about that in terms of power to support Mother Earth and nature?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

And they do, and we all do. Every adult, in fact, has also once been a children. Children has once been a child. And we have in my work, I have done a lot of research, and there are studies that show how much children's activities have changed the world. Like in my generation, for example, kids got their parents and grandparents to stop smoking back in the day. And those studies that prove uh were able to show that the kids could have that influence were then used in environmental education. With the city of Los Angeles, for example, for many years they tried in the 70s and 80s to get households to do recycling, and nobody would recycle. Then they put it in the K to 6 curriculum in the schools, and the recycling almost got to like 80-90% within a year. And it's all because of the influence of the kids because learning these things and informing your parents about it and teachers, it really makes a huge difference.

unknown 5:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

It's so cool too that it's like the children learned recycling, for example, and then that is what inspired their parents.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

And they made the change so quickly.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Exactly.

Why Fresh Water Is Precious

SPEAKER_00 5:32

And your work has been tell us a little bit more of your work because you focused on you love the water.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yes. I do love Mother Earth and the water. Most of almost all of my career I have worked on fresh water. So you know that our bodies are 80% water, and the earth is about 80% water, but a lot of that is still locked up in ice and salt water we can't drink easily without uh distillation with a lot of work. And I worked on fresh water, and um that is the water that we can drink and wash dishes and clothes and everything else that we do in our lives, it's all fresh water, which is about if you think of all the water on earth, it's about equal to one teaspoon of water. The fresh water, the fresh water, because there's so much salt water, there's so much salt water, and there's so much, it's still unavailable, too far under the ground or frozen in ice, and so in workshops, I used to take a gallon jug, like a lot of kids have probably seen gallon jugs of water in their house, and you can see if there's enough to go around, and then you can put some in a teaspoon, and that's how much there is for everybody in the world to drink every day. Wow, and the water cycle on Earth is a closed cycle, which means there's no new water, it is recycles and recycles through all of time. So the water that the dinosaurs drank is the same water that we're drinking in our cups today, Winslow.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

That is like so incredible, and that's something I didn't know. Wow. Like that to to imagine that the dinosaurs were drinking the same water as us, and it makes you really feel well ones like water so wise.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Think about what water has seen over the years, and it's 80% of our bodies too, especially kids. Children young people's bodies are much more percent water than an older person. So the wisdom is in the water, in the person.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Wow. And is there something children like, you know, because first it's like even just thinking about the dinosaurs and us and that connection through water, is there something too children could do to begin to care for the water more or support Mother Earth's waters?

Simple Ways Kids Can Test Water

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Definitely. There are so many things. I've worked with kids in so many countries where they can have little test bottles and collect a little bit of water to make sure that the water that they're drinking is safe, like where there's a little bit of powder in the bottle and they can shake it up, they take a collection, and if it turns black, then it's not safe for drinking, and if it stays clear or pink or something, it's okay for drinking. You know, it depends on the test kit what color it will get to be. But um, yeah, because even in our country, in the United States, um people are getting sick from contaminated water. So kids, it's a very easy thing that kids can do is collect a sample and test it. Right. And if you don't have a test bottle, you can always bring it to like school and they can get it tested. Sometimes even Home Depots have packages you can send it out.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Right. It's like you can test your water. Yes.

What UNICEF Is And Does

SPEAKER_00 9:24

And I thought actually we should, because you mentioned UNICEF. And do you want to share with listeners what that stands for? I'm thinking children may not have heard.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Oh, UNICEF is the United Nations Children's Fund. And so I worked in New York in the headquarters where the UN is in New York, and then there's also other UN organizations. So my office was in um three United Nations Plaza, and the Earth Child Institute was in 777 United Nations Plaza. So I worked there for many years. And you were creating curriculums for children, and working with it, and UNICEF has country offices in all um less industrialized um developing countries, they call it, poor more poor countries all around the world. And and also in some wealthy countries as fundraisers, yeah, and I've worked in all of those, you know, not all of those. There are 189 countries, and I've only worked in 67.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

So that's that's um but so many

What Kids Ask Around The World

SPEAKER_00 10:40

children. You've been with so many children in so many different communities, and is there something you when you think about all those different adventures and trips and experiences, is there something you've taken away from the children or learned from children around the world?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

And of course, maybe many things, but one thing that has been really important to me, I've always in all the places I've gone, I was always researching and learning about their communities and their schools and if they have toilets and they have water. But then when I would finish asking them questions, I would ask if they have any questions for me. And in every single country that I can remember, every single school group, when I ask them what they want to ask me, the first thing they ask is, what are the kids like in this other place? What are they like in New York? What are they like in Shanghai? What are they like in Nairobi? And it's inherent, even in they all want to know about each other. And the when I began working with kids in refugee areas, I I would tell them, you know, the sky is blue at their house too. People don't realize like what a small world this is, and so that really gave me the inspiration for my um book series EcoMasters, which is girls um in five different countries.

EcoMasters And Shared Earth Stories

SPEAKER_01 12:19

It's an action adventure with and they're protecting the water, and they have to get to a hidden island in the Amazon, and it's a it's a book series. And it all began with the questions the kids asked me in their communities, and some of the ones that inspired me most became fictional characters or a part of fictional characters in the books.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

That is amazing. So we'll have a link so children can look, check out Eco Masters. Um, but I love that piece where you said it's like the sky is blue in these other communities, these other countries, and it's like for the children, you're all you're all looking at the same moon. Yeah, you're all looking at the same sky, and so you might feel so far away, but there is a shared earth. And and it's you can forget that when you live in communities around the world, especially rural, isolated ones.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Exactly.

Tree Practice For Self Love

SPEAKER_00 13:24

And as we wrap up, there was a practice once you mentioned where it was about the tree teaching children self-love through the tree, just a simple practice. Do you mind sharing that with us?

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Yes, thank you for asking, Winslow, especially for kids whose bodies are changing all the time. I like to do this really simple lesson about trees because trees grow in response to their environment, the other trees nearer to them, the roots, what it brings up, and the wind and the rain. And their bodies are, if you look at the tree, a tree near your house or near your community in a park, you can see that none of them are exactly the same. They have, you know, twists and turns and bumps and different kinds of leaves and all of these things. And it's so much like our bodies, we are all different. Our bodies grow in different ways, and we can really judge ourselves sometimes when we look in the mirror, especially when our bodies are changing. And if we look at the trees, we think that the trees are so beautiful, no matter what, no matter what is it's so true.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

It's like we look at the trees and we have curiosity, openness, we see beauty, strength, so many different positive qualities. And oh that's like looking, and so it's when you see the tree, is it it's like you see the tree and then recognize that you are a tree, you you're your own human tree. Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

The trees are the connection between the earth and the sky, and so are we, right? And we grow in response to our environments too. So if we're a little taller or shorter or skinnier or less skinnier, you know, it's all in response to our environment, just like the trees.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Right. It's all good, it's all good, and it's like there's beauty in each tree, so there's beauty in one of us, and in the differences and like the different moles, like none of them. We all have things on our bodies that are our own thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

And and I think when you're growing up, there's you can feel shame and embarrassed when you don't fit right into what you think you should, and I'd like all kids to remember that in the history of time there's never been another person exactly like you, and the same with the trees. There's never been another one exactly the same. So we can't all be

Mother Earth And Me Preview

SPEAKER_01 16:18

the same because we're different, and that's something to really value, and it's also something that I think today's kids are so much more highly evolved than we were, and and can really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

So thank you for doing this once all you're so welcome, Donna. It's such an honor to have you. And this is I feel like with you, Donna, this is like the first of a deep dive because you're someone who is like you're like as deep as the earth and have done just you have so much to share. And so this is like for children listening, this is like a little scratch in the dirt from learning with Donna. But thank you for sharing that. It's like remembering the beauty within the beauty of Earth and how connected we all are.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Yeah, I call it Mother Earth and Me.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Mother Earth and Me. Oh, and as we wrap up, was that Mother Earth and Me?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

That was an organization or a no Mother Earth and Me will be a book and online classes, like the tree. And you can learn about gravity and magnets and invisible forces and so so many things. Gardens for your schools and your homes, and I look forward to talking to you more about it, Winslow. So beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Thank you so much, Donna. Thank you for joining me and the fairies on our fairy podcast. It is an honor to have you with us.

Free Gifts And How To Join

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Take a moment to notice how much lighter and brighter you feel after connecting with the fairies and the beautiful energy of your own heart. If you want more opportunities to be part of fairy school, the fairies have some special gifts for you. They would love to offer you a free month of fairy letters filled with fairy practices, fairy news, and fairy wonders. The fairies and I would also love to offer you a free 30-minute coaching session where you can connect with your heart magic and inner sparkle even more. And we host a free fairy school class on YouTube live every Monday at 3 p.m. mountain time. You can find more information at winslowvale.com. We can't wait to share more fairy adventures, stories, and practices with you on our next episode. Thank you for listening. See you next time.