It's Your Oregon: Great Adventure Child Care

Karen Morrison has been taking care of children for almost 15 years.  Currently, she watches six out of her home in Albany, OR.  Karen has had babies as young as 6 weeks old in her care; currently the youngest is 1 year and they usually stay in her care until they start school.

Like many providers, the Eco-Healthy Childcare Program was a natural extension of her values that she already integrates into her daily life.  In many ways, Karen was already going above and beyond the checklist, with hands on lessons about nature, including composting for their garden.  She then uses this compost to grow strawberries, grapes, plums, blackberries, garlic, carrots and plants that are good for the environment, like natives and those that attract butterflies. 

She teaches the children about good bugs and bad bugs and instead of killing snails, they have snail races.  The kids also get a lesson when the aphids start eating their pumpkins. They use ladybugs, a natural predator they have hatched, to eat the aphids.  Right now the kids are working on hatching preying mantises. 

Karen doesn’t preach to the kids, she wants them to learn by doing, and hopes the experiences they have will influence them to care about the environment as they get older.  She hopes this may even help teach parents. 

Getting the checklist in the mail did make Karen reevaluate some practices that she had not thought about in terms of children’s health.  She used to whip out an aerosol can after changing dirty diapers, because of the smell and germs, but after learning the aerosol affects air quality, she stopped.  She no longer burns scented candles and recommends boiling vanilla and cinnamon in a pot on the stove, for a non-toxic, sweetened scent.

Karen hopes to one day be completely green and self-sustainable; one area she struggles with now is her carpets.  Eventually she wants bamboo flooring and her rooftop adorned with solar panels.  Karen said “I’ll get there”, but these are steps she will have to make over time, as investments allow.  

She thinks the program is most important for the health of the children- “everything you do affects them” and she actively teaches them that what they do has an impact on the environment and it has an impact on their future.

Click here for information on how to become an Eco-Healthy Childcare.

Click here to return to the online profiles.