Blanket on the Earth

One night when we were driving home from swim class, my 6 year old daughter E and 5 year old son C were talking about all the things they knew. They were proud they understood a lot about how the world works for their age, but E was weighing that against not being as good as a group of kids at math (since that group was insanely good at math for their age).

I explained to my kids on the ride back that I value being able to apply knowledge to solve problems or spot patterns. It’s great if they were geniuses at math, but applying knowledge is where I want to focus on so they can become critical thinkers. E perked up and then started to ask me about what greenhouse gases were (random!).

I told them that they were stuck in the air and prevented the heat from escaping the Earth after the sun radiated our planet. E then said it was like a blanket on the Earth keeping Earth too warm. That was a great analogy and she remembered that from school. It clicked that greenhouse gases triggered global warming. I love that her brain is amazing at pattern matching and also figuring out (or remembering) creative ways to talk about something. I’ll bank on this being super helpful in life every time!