Unit Activity

Many children today are becoming involved in helping to care for the environment. Have the children in your group brainstorm a list of things that fifth graders can do to help care for God’s gift of Creation. Some suggestions are tuning off lights after leaving a room; tending a garden; recycling aluminum, plastic, and paper products; giving old toys and games to a younger sibling, cousin, or neighbor; composting leaves; not littering.) Have the children report back on their progress.

Unit Activity

Invite a member of your parish’s “Respect Life Committee” to a session. In advance, work with the children to create questions to ask this person, such as:

• How is our parish involved in respect life issues?
• What is our parish doing to help end abortion?
• What are some ways fifth graders can help promote a Culture of Life?

Be sure to send a thank-you note to your guest. Also, encourage the children to share with their families what they learned in this session.

Background Article

As the Church continually states in her teachings on stewardship, we have an obligation to respect and care for God’s creation. There is, fortunately, a growing awareness that we need to make greater efforts to conserve our natural resources, recycle what we can, and be less wasteful in general. God calls us to be good stewards of every gift has has given us. Stewardship involves governments, corporations, communities, families, and individuals.

Background Article

The Catholic Church teaches that every human being has been created by God in his divine image and is precious to him. This is why the sanctity of human life and the inherent dignity of the human person are the foundation of Catholic social teaching.

We are asked to love and honor the life of every man and woman and to work with perseverance and courage so that our time, marked by all too many signs of death, may at last witness the establishment of a new culture of life, the fruit of the culture of truth and of love.