When it comes to living a green, environmentally conscious lifestyle and helping out wherever you can, sometimes all it takes to get kids motivated is inspiring them with the work of others. These examples carry an even more powerful impact when you can show them how everyday people are helping in big ways.

Helping the environment is an effort that seems like a huge, hopeless endeavor until you look at the variety of ways that real people are making a difference in their own communities around the world. When helping is filtered down from a global scale to a local mindset, children find it to be a lot easier to wrap their heads around and are more likely to start looking for ways to help on their own.

I love Harriet Rohmer’s book Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet. It shares the individual stories of 12 people around the world who are making differences in their areas and what inspired them to get involved. What I really enjoy about this book is that the efforts are all so different—in both settings and actions. From solar and wind power to safely disposing of electronic waste and recycled building materials.

Heroes of the Environment offers an eye-opening perspective on how one person can make such an amazing, inspiring impact on the world. It’s a fabulous book for adults and children alike and reminds us that one person can truly make a difference.