Can you see it too?

Did you know that frogs help to curb the population of mosquitoes?

My daughter and I love frogs, so when I heard about a two-week summer camp that focuses on frogs I signed her up for it. The kids go on field trips, do crafts and learn about frogs.

  I was disappointed to see that they keep frogs in bowls. My daughter talked to the teacher about setting them free and she was told that those frogs belong to them. Then I explained to my daughter that those frogs do not belong to human beings; they belong to nature.

 We don’t need to be smart to understand that those frogs are suffering.  
  Is this the way they teach about compassion to kids?

 Are they imparting the message that their suffering is okay as long as we ignore it?
 Being more powerful than the frogs does not mean that it is acceptable to imprison them.

 I promised my daughter that I will write a letter to her teacher.

 Later that day we came across this lovely picture book at the local library: Growing Frogs by Vivian French; it was illustrated by Alison Bartlett.

 On the first page we read the following words:

 Frogs are in danger. Please help!

Rules for frog-lovers:

Don’t take frog spawn from a pond in the wild

You should only take frog spawn from a man-made pond and only take a little.

Always take your frogs back to the pond they came from.

 We live in a neighborhood of educated people. Yet they seem to ignore that the chemicals they use to kill weeds are harming frogs. How about teaching kids about compassion by respecting nature?

 Ignorance has its own consequences. Human beings are also part of nature and, whether we acknowledge it or not, pesticides end up in the water we drink.