The Stay at Home GeekMom Weekend Edition: The Best Apps For Earth Day. All iOS Devices.

Green Apps! The Best Apps For Earth Day. All iOS Devices.

Go Green and Learn More About Our Beautiful Home: Earth.

For All iDevices, Ages, Interests and Budgets.

Wow it’s been so long I hope you guys remember me!

With holidays and my added gig at appadvice.com, writing AppLists and AppGuides (lists are like this post, a list of different apps, related in a broad category, in no order, guides rank apps in a single specific genre) I’ve hardly had a chance to breathe. But it’s fun.  =D

Ok so Earth Day is fast approaching, but every day really should be Earth day, especially if you have kids. I don’t have to tell you it’s their world we’re mucking up and they have the most to win or lose.

But we all can do with some education, and some tools to make being green easier. And there are many increbible ways to view our planet with iOS apps. Once you check some of them out, you will learn or remember why Earth is so special no matter what lens you view it through, and desrving of loving care.

This is a reprint from my first two app lists, all for Earth Day.

Part One is a list of iPhone/iPod touch and universal apps that can help you find practical ways to make changes, and stories and games to engage your little eco-activists.

Part Two are iPad and Universal apps that show you Earth’s beauty, history, science and natural splendour in spectacular and creative ways. There are many great choices for young students to learn and play with too. In total here are 21 green apps for iOS.

Please check them both out, the  lists follow each other in a single long post rather than being split in two as usual so you can have them in time for Friday, April 22, 2011.

Green Apps For iPhone

There are lots of ways to be a part of the solution on Earth Day and around the year. Whether you want to learn more, do more, conserve more, or educate your kids, there’s a green app for that.

My Recycle List by 1-800-Recycling.com (Free)

Everyone knows recycling is a key factor in any Green effort. But it’s not always easy to know where to bring everything or even what, specifically, is recyclable. This app offers a solution by helping you create a very specific list from nine categories of common recyclables, and then finds a location near you that accepts them.

Green Outlet by Key Lime 314, LLC (4.99)

One great way of conserving energy and reducing your electricity bill is to find out which appliances are the biggest drain in your home. Here’s an app that does that for you.

Enter your current rate (per KW hour) select anything from an xbox to a fish tank and see what it’s really costing you and the earth. The app even calculates your carbon footprint.

The Four Seasons – An Earth Day Interactive childrens story book by Tab Tale (Free)

There is not a more receptive, nor a more important group to educate about the environment than children. It’s their future that is at stake after all. This beautiful free ebook created just for Earth Day will engage your youngest eco-warriors with a charming story, animations, and tons of interactive features. It has an almost perfect rating in the App Store.

EnvironRss by Michael Wasserman (.99)

Knowledge is power and this app gives you access to an wealth of information on all matters relating to the environment. Follow events from around the world by checking out any of the many included RSS feeds like government feeds, non-profits like the WWF or Sierra club, and even cutting edge think tanks. Share by Facebook or email, save for offline reading with Instapaper integration, and add your own RSS feeds too. A great resource.

Skeptical Science by Shine Technologies (Free)

The biggest impediment to Green efforts is that ignorance and misinformation about global warming in particular, abounds; there are doubters and nay-sayers everywhere. This app breaks down common misconceptions like “it’s not happening” or “It’s not bad” and then offers factual peer-reviewed scientific research to contest almost any irrational argument you may encounter.

Clean The Gulf by Tiger Stripes LLC (Free)

The Deepwater Horizon (BP) oil rig spill in the Gulf of Mexico created the biggest natural disaster in US history. This app Is a great way for young and old to learn about the impact and help in the cleanup. The app offers information about the Gulf in simple language and with animation to make it engaging for kids. It also provides practical ways to get involved.

Earth Hour 60+ by Earth Hour (Free)

Earth Hour has passed for 2011, but this app keeps the spirit alive all year. Interact with the Global Village and see what others are doing to make an difference. Get great ideas of small things you can do every day to change the world. Then share your own ideas with photos and videos.

Three Trees by Studio Pepwuper, Inc (.99)

This game already had an environmental theme. The object is to move water, air, and sun in order to save three plants from the ravages of dust, flooding, and drought. It’s simple, challenging, and the developers are adding an Earth Day update that promises to help explain the day and provide resources for learning more.

WWF Panda Collection Tin by WWF UK (1.99)

The World Wildlife Fund is a global organization that works to preserve animals from extinction around the globe. One way you can support their cause is to buy a virtual gift for yourself or a friend. You get a cute 3D panda tin, and the WWF UK gets research funds.

GoodGuide by GoodGuide (Free)

Changing what you buy, and even how you shop is another way to help the Earth. Some products are less toxic than others, some companies have a better environmental track record than others.

This app helps you sort through over 70,000 Food, Personal Care, Household Cleaners, Toys, and Paper products. You just use iPhone camera as a bar code scanner and find out everything you need to know. Then share the info on social media and create shopping and blacklists.

The Lorax – Dr. Seuss by Oceanhouse Media (4.99)

If anyone knows how to engage kids, it’s the great Dr Seuss. The Lorax is a cautionary tale about corporate greed, deforestation, and extinction. The Once-ler recounts how the Lorax “who speaks for the trees” tried and failed to save the Truffula Forest and its inhabitants from his Thneeds Factory. The app comes with read-it-myself or read-it-to-me options and renders the Green classic beautifully for iOS.

Lorax Garden by Oceanhouse Media (1.99)

To compliment the book, the Lorax Garden offers gameplay for any age. Where the book ends sadly (but with a glimmer of hope), now you have the chance to help the Lorax reforest the woods with Truffula trees and flowers you grow. It’s a lot of fun and brings the message that change is possible home.

iPad Apps For Earth Day

To know Earth is to love Earth. But efforts to secure our planet’s future require a knowledge of it, past and present. Only when we understand our wondrous world can we truly engage in the battle to save it. In honor of Earth Day we look at some of the very best iPad titles in the App Store for learning about our home. From the sky, through a camera lens, through animals, nature, art, history and fun, we we bring you the best iPad apps to celebrate our planet and understand our place in it, on Earth Day and all year long.

Google Earth, by Google. Free

The best way to get to know your planet is to see it, and no one brings it to you quite like Google Earth. It uses Google’s satellite imagery to allow you to explore the far reaches of the globe or your own backyard at a swipe. The app is great on all iOS devices, but it shines on iPad, especially when viewing the high-resolution images of over half the world’s population and browsing the vast nunber of geo-located photos from around the globe.

DINOSAURS iPad: American Museum of Natural History Collections by American Museum of Natural History.( 99)

They say those who don’t study the past are doomed to repeat it. How better, then, to learn how to avoid a catastrophic future than by studying dinosaurs and their legacy. The American Museum of Natural History brings their world-famous exhibits to iPad so everyone can discover the clues our cold-blooded forbearers left behind.

It contains a mosaic of over 1000 images from the museum’s archive in a collage that replicates a T-Rex; each interactive pic provides information about where the fossil was found. It’s Mesozoic eye candy.]

50 Greatest Photographs of National Geographic by National Geographic Society – 4.99 (Reg. 9.99)

How the National Geographic Society narrowed down their spectacular archive of iconic photographs is beyond imagining, but this app presents you with 50 of their finest shots. And a ton of background information too.

Features include: a video introduction from the Editor-in-Chief of the Magazine; photographer bios; background information on the photos; videos; and interactive maps and timelines. It is a bit expensive, but the way National Geo captures nature and culture is priceless.

Britannica Kids: Rainforests by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc ($4.99)

If you have a child in grammar school, they have almost certainly learned about the fragile existence of the world’s rain forests. Brittanica (of Encyclopedia fame) serves up an interactive mix of games images and information on 21 animals and topics like “What is a Rainforest”, “Rainforest Plants” and “Rainforest Threats” It’s a great study aid, and sure to engage. Aimed at kids 8-12.

 Living Earth HD – World Clock and Weather by Moshen Chan (.99)Looking for something a little more functional? This app brings you a virtual 3D view of Earth from outer space and while universal, serves as an ideal showcase app for your iPad’s display. It features accurate cloud rendering in close to real time, allowing you to see storms as they happen from a rare vantage point.
It’s also a world clock with an alarm functions, and a weather app with a four day forecast for over 22,000 global locations. Watch sunrise lead to sunset, the seasons as they change, all in stunning hi-resolution.

Geo Walk HD – 3D World Factbook by Vito Technology Inc. (2.99)
This app provides an innovative approach to teaching kids about the world. Young users are presented with a 3D virtual globe that is spinable and scaleable. The app contains 500 pictures and brief descriptions broken into four categories: places, animals, plants, and people. There is even an interactive quiz. It’s a good choice to engage grade and middle schoolers with their planet without overwhelming them with tons of information. They call it “Edutainement”; that’s on the nose

Heritage, by Fotonauts Inc. (Free)

Fotopedia brings you the world in many wonderful ways, but none of their apps are better suited to Earth Day than Heritage. This award-winning collection of 25,000 stunning photographs from around the globe is completely free. Admire images of our beautiful planet in all its glorious colors then save your favorites to use as wallpaper or share via social media.

Here On Earth by Arcade Sunshine Media, LLC. ($11.99)

For those who want something substative, the interactive edition of Tim Flannery’s book about Darwin, Dawkins, evolution, and how to reshape our thinking on those matters, is an ideal choice.

The multimedia version of the bestselling work, “traces the history of the planet, the history of humanity, and the impact that we have had on our planet.”Before you balk at the price, the text iBook is only a dollar less; in print, it’s more.

Here the text is accompanied by 25 Interviews with the author, videos from award-winning filmmakers, social network integration, even air play support. it’s not for the intellectually timid, but the special features make the book much more accessible. A benchmark for interactive books in any genre.

TreePad by Algorithmic Botany (Free)

Here’s a completely different way to celebrate Earth Day and your love of trees year round. Treepad gives you the ability to render 3D tree models from a vast assortment of natural tree elements. It has the customizability of a top-notch art app, but with results so realistic you will find yourself making one after another and filling at least your virtual space with oxygenated wonder.

Art Authority for iPad, by Open Door Networks, Inc. (9.99)

Photos, fossils and facts are traditional ways to view the world. A path less travelled is history through the lens of art. Of all the multi-artist apps in the App Store this one offers the greatest breadth. It has everything from cave drawings to contemporary classics, taking you on a journey like no other. The app is full of hi-def images of masterworks broken into periods and displayed like an art gallery. It will take you on an odyssey through time guided by many of the most creative people to ever grace our planet. Also availble for iPhone.

Thanks for checking this out doing your part to make a greener tomorrow. I’ll be back soon with fresh apps soon, in the mean time please check out some of my recent reviewes:

• LinguPimgu Makes Learning Language Fun!
• You Mean You Don’t Know Jack HD?
• Who’s The Fastest Robot Builder In Your Family? Find Out With Robot City
• If It Walks Like A Lemming and Talks Like  a Lemming It Must Be Caveman HD
• Stay At Home GeekMom Weekend Edition: Best Puzzlers For Teens and Everyone Else Part 1
• Stay at Home GeekMom Weekend Edition: Best Puzzler’s For Teens and Everyone Else Part 2
• The Monkeys Are Back And This Time They’re Bursting Onto iPad:Bloons TD 4 HD
• Things Get Awfully Sticky When Five Little Monkeys Wash the Car!
• Take Time With Your Kids To Smell The Penelope Rose 
• Angry Birds Rio and DOODLE JUMP ON iPAD!: Hits with movie-ties in and brand new apps.
• UPDATED: The Future of Interactive Text and E-Books Rome: A Virtual History ver 1.
• Stay at Home GeekMom Weekend Edition: Best iPad and iPhone games for kids 5-12 part one (3/19)
• Stay at Home GeekMom Weekend Edition: Best ipad and iPhone Games for kids 5-12 part two (3/20)
• Make Magic With Max and His Magic Marker HD Finally On iOS
• Easter Magic Without The Broken Eggs
• Manage Mommy Madness with MommyCal (iPhone and iPad) – it’s AWESOME!!
• Stay at Home GeekMom Weekend Edition: Best iPad Books for Toddlers through Grade 3 part one (2/5)
• Stay at Home GeekMom Weekend Edition: Best iPad Books for Toddlers through Grade 3 part two (2/6)

Happy App Hunting

The 

My All Time Favorite Kid’s iPad Book Is Donating $1/Download To Apps for Children with Special Needs: Review of Little Mermaid – Auryn

Take An Underwater Journey Through A Classic Tale: The Little Mermaid

Posted by Lisa Caplan on: March 1st, 2011, 7.33 pm on appadvice.com – reprinted March 23rd, 2011 in order to feature the Donations to Benefit Apps For Children With Special Needs. Plus a new introduction for SAHGeekmom.com and info on how to win Auryn Ink!

I first met Auryn Apps WAY back, 2 months ago, when I was just starting off my blog. I reviewed the amazing watercolour painting app, Auryn Ink (not the app being reviewed or connected with charity, just backstory) along with a favorite sylus of mine, from Pengo.

It was that review (click her e to read it, but bear in mind it’s, um, vintage…lol) and my app stalking guide (useful still, CLICK HERE TO READ but again let’s call it retro), however amateurish they were, that l turned this blog from a lark for friends, to, well, to whatever it is now, and got me writing for appadvice.com.

Since that time I have come to know one of the people behind AurynApps. After I reviewed their app, we tweeted a bit and she sent me the promo code for Mermaid, etc. I have to confess I consider her a friend now, but I wrote my reviews before we had spoken.

Anyway tomorrow Auryn Ink will be featured (With A GIVEAWAY) on Robin Rhys’s Video Review Show AppAdvice Daily, on Thursday 3/24/11, and now Auryn’s helping to raise funds for a fabulous cause I support wholeheartedly, (see About Me) Apps for Children Children With Special Needs. 

So please, check out the most beautiful fairy tale in the App Store and help get iPads to children with special needs. They are the most amazing tool for Special Education and disability access.

And please pass the news along. If recent events have shown anything it is the power of social networking to bring about change and allow large numbers of people, do small thing to great effect.

Here’s my appadvice.com review:

Little Mermaid – Auryn ($3.99) by Auryn Inc. is a minimally interactive, beautifully animated new e-book for iPad that tells the original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, The Little Mermaid, in a way you haven’t seen before. This app is absolute eye candy.

Renowned children’s book illustrator, Lizbeth Zwerger, whose art has decorated the pages of this whimsical undersea story for years, lent her work to this app, and the result is nothing short of spectacular.

The While most books of this sort are aimed at the preschool crowd, Auryn’s The Little Mermaid will delight anyone who enjoys the masterful 19th Century storyteller’s iconic works.

Umesh Shukla, CCO and founder of Auryn Apps, explains that this latest title in their catalogue of iOS books is meant to “capture a wider audience. From 6-8 year olds to a more sophisticated child audience, and even adults who are young at heart.”

The app is interactive in as much as it has a read-aloud feature, and there is a watery interactive surface, much like the many Koi pond apps you can find on the App Store. You can make the water ripple, and have fish follow your fingers on the alternating text and art pages (it is art, you really have to see it). And, that is all the flash you get, which is a lovely change for an App Store kid-lit offering.

Auryn manages to achieve the elusive balance between using technology to maximize the user experience while still allowing room for the content to speak for itself. The Zen-like interface sets off Zwerger’s illustrations perfectly and complements the tranquility that pervades this rendition of the beloved story.

The narrator’s tone is fluid, and as melodious as her merfolk subjects, making the book a pleasure to hear as well as read. The gentle ambient underwater sounds reinforce the serenity making this a perfect bedtime companion for children of all ages.

Since this is the original 150 year-old text it is not trite. There is a basic love story, and just enough suspense to appeal to children of both genders, but don’t expect singing lobsters or a Disney-style happily ever after.

On a deeper level the story is a meditation on the value of the temporal life and the eternal soul. Auryn’s The Little Mermaid will put anyone in a reflective frame of mind to quietly ponder these questions.

It’s also refreshing to read about a princess who saves a man, instead of the other way around. Girls as old as 12 should enjoy this story on many levels.

This is a must-have e-book for any young person, and even an admirable coffee table book to show off your iPad. The only complaint I have is that the story had to end.

When it comes to striking a perfect balance between substance and style in the genre of interactive children’s fiction, Auryn has set a new standard. I hope to see more of this sort of well-balanced brain food soon, and will be watching Auryn apps carefully in anticipation of similar future offerings.

Thanks for reading or re-reading and you will love this book and be helping a great cause, so please check it out!

Happy App Hunting,

The 

Please Take a Moment to Reflect With Me – An Aside

Egypt, Youth, Freedom & Peace in the Age of Social Media

A Cause for Pause

Please take a moment to watch this video and reflect on how lucky we are to be free, and what price others will pay for the same luxury.

Now please thank God or your Higher Power (or Google and Facebook et al.) for the fact that we live in an age where all this global-interconnectivity unites freedom-lovers everywhere.

Then let’s celebrate  the un-repressable, often blessedly-myopic, optimism of youth that drove this movement forward and reminded us all that change is indeed possible. It’s easy to forget that on the wrong side of 40…

Be grateful if you didn’t have to shed blood in order to log on to your favorite websites to post whatever was on your mind last week.

Finally let’s all hug our kids (and parents who sacrifice everything for their children all over Earth) and show them the video too.

If we all care, there is nothing stopping humanity from it’s never-ending quest for basic rights and freedom.

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I am not going to editorialize further. IMO if you don’t get goosebumps you don’t get it and nothing I can say will change that.

But since Memri TV who put this video up seems to be having trouble at their website, I want to do my small part to help keep it viral.

I hope one of the lessons of all this is how each of us doing our small part in this age of social media can make miracles happen even in the deserts of oppression.

(BTW I have no idea who Memri TV is, I am just in awe of the person who wrote this song)

Politics can come back another day, for now. whatever your concerns or political affiliations, I think everyone ought to rejoice at this incredible movement of the people, for the people and by the people.

The human spirit is indomitable and there is no problem that does not contain its own solution.

Wishing you all

Peace, He Ping, Piax, Pax, Shalom, Aøxsÿti, Vred, Rauha, Sith, Heiwa, Heddwich, Pace, Paz, Salaam.

The 

ps. if you are wondering what this has to do with a blog aimed at parents, kids, educators, readers, writers and other creative and artsy folk, I think you are missing the point to0; what better chance to teach our children than by the power of example?