This album is a collection of songs I drew from for a school assembly program I put together to help educate kids to be good stewards of the earth. I was a little apprehensive the first time I did this program for a group of junior high students, but they liked the songs and happily sang along. Hopefully they will remember and be guided by them. A new twist on an old song: We’ve Got the Whole World (trad.) Delighting in the wonders of springtime: De Colores (trad.) Spring! (Ingrid Noyes) Love and respect those animals!: Baby Beluga (Raffi) Over in the Meadow (trad.) You Can’t Make a Turtle Come Out (Malvina Reynolds) About our food and where it comes from. Growing your own is definitely a positive form of activism— refusing to buy commercially grown produce, and saying why! The Garden Song (Dave Mallet) La Bella Hortelana (trad.) Apple Song (Nora Greene Pasco), originally a letter to the editor Owl Moon (Bruce O’Brien), based on the book “Owl Moon” by Jane Yolen, about a father sharing his admiration for winter nights and owls with his young daughter. A round as pretty as the planet: This Pretty Planet (Tom Chapin) Based on a true story: Lambeth Children (Malvina Reynolds) Five beings, five points of view: Mahogany Tree (Sarah Pirtle) Solar energy—yes! Getting Our Energy from the Sun (lyrics: Tom Pease and Stuart Stotts) Hoping we can soon find or rediscover cleaner, quieter, saner ways to travel: Gotta Get Rid of the Cars (Ingrid Noyes) The ultimate recycling song: Had an Old Coat (Paul Kaplan) Composed to sing at a city council meeting. The protest that this song was part of did finally succeed in convincing the city to change its plans: Slow Down, Santa Rosa (Ingrid Noyes) About new ways replacing old ways and the consequences: Whaling Song (Country Joe McDonald) This song makes me cry: Home in the Sky (Nancy Schimmel) Written by a Russian boy: May There Always be Sunshine (Kostya Barannikov, age 4) Ingrid Noyes: vocals, guitar, banjo, accordion, dulcimer, percussion Simone, Emma and Isabella Oppen, Karin and Sara Weiner: chorus girls Ernie Noyes: vocals, mandolin, jaw harp, guitar on the Garden Song Teresa McKenzie: lead vocals on Whaling Song Marina Beebe: Russian vocals on May There Always be Sunshine Recorded & mixed at Grizzly Digital Sound in Petaluma CA, 1998 by Roger Tschann