Sesame Street Has Always Been Green

When my brother and I were five and six, we had a kinship with two rubber puppets. Bert and Ernie’s likenesses were firmly affixed to our left hands for as much as I can recall, their striped shirts flowing down to our bony, prepubescent elbows. My brother’s puppet/role model/nerdy twin, Bert, had a uni-brow crafted into the model of its head, and my sassy Ernie had a sprout of hair that frizzed merrily.

These Sesame Street dummies slept with us, ate our Rice Krispies with us, and accompanied us to science camp. We certainly set the wheels in motion for a lonely, friendless childhood, void of pool parties and Chuck E. Cheese invites.

My mother was chronically ill with in and out of hospital care, so the hand-puppet pals were the brainchild of my father. He felt we could have built-in best friends and possible comfort creatures during this funky period. He knew our hands were in good hands since he was a supporter of the research and teachings of the Children’s Television Workshop, the genius collective behind Sesame Street.

Good lessons were taught to us when we tuned in. Letters and numbers, and shapes and colors.  Lying is bad. Don’t spread germs. And…death happens.

Big Bird gives his friends pictures he drew of them. Mr. Hooper was a friend of Big Bird and often made him birdseed milk shakes, but hisdeath is revealed as Big Bird finds out that Mr. Hooper is no longer at Hooper's Store. Not understanding, Big Bird announces he will just wait for him to come back.

The adults of Sesame Street tell him that when people die, they don’t come back. Big Bird angrily demands to know why things have to be the way they are, and no one has a ready answer.

When Will Lee, the man who played the character of Mr. Hooper died, it left the producers of Sesame Street with questions about how to acknowledge the death of one of the series' most visible actors. One way out was to avoid the issue of death entirely. After much discussion and research, the producers decided to have the character of Mr. Hooper pass away as well, and use the episode to teach its young viewers about death as a natural part of life, and that it is okay to grieve and feel sad when a loved one passes away.

Explaining death to children is similar to talking to kids about sex, or saving our planet. It is necessary, and this fabulous, fearless show works at educating kinder sprouts. In more recent episodes, children are planting gardens and are being encouraged to eat natural foods. In addition to being healthy, kiddies are reminded through puppet song and dance, they really taste great! Whether it’s planting a garden or tree or growing a plant, the educators behind the program know kids will enjoy helping to plant the seeds and checking on their plants’ daily progress.

Sesame Street has always touched on conservation, such as not wasting resources and proper disposal of trash. One of the very first videos back at the inception in 1969 was Cookie Monster and his father chatting about reducing waste around the house. And I clearly remember the sketch of recycling cans narrated by a young boy.

The show doesn’t touch on hot-button issues such as global warming, deforestation, or have a character called Low Flow Elmo; those heavier concepts would be lost on the infant to six-year-old set. But Sesame Streetwas always way ahead of its time with its “Let's love and care for the Earth, because it's so beautiful, and we appreciate its awe and wonder, and we're going to respect it” values.

The street itself is set in the middle of New York City. Public transportation is a must, and Muppets are often at bus stops. The show unmistakably has a curriculum about nature and caring for the world that is just right for today. This show continues to stay very current with ideas that are in the zeitgeist.

Over forty years of introducing children to the basic ideas of sustainable living. And who wouldn’t love that?