The Los Angeles River looks like a storm drain and sometimes smells like a sewer. But for hundreds of local students, it's an unparalleled outdoor classroom, thanks to the L.A. River School program. This story is from What Kids Can Do.

The Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning's Community Tool Kit is intended to help communities fight childhood lead poisoning by focusing lead screening where it can do the most good, increasing screening for children in target communities.

To ensure a healthy and happy holiday season for children, the American Academy of Pediatrics is offering safety tips to parents. The tips cover topics including toys and trees, as well as food preparation, fire prevention and safe visiting in others' homes.

In February 2002, the Environmental Protection Agency required the pesticide industry to phase out the use of the arsenic-based pesticide chromated copper arsenate for use on wood that would expose children to the pesticide, but assured the public that old arsenic-treated structures did not need to be replaced. This report warns that "this assurance, it turns out, is wrong."

Each year, the American Lung Association issues a State of the Air report with statistics on air pollution across the country.

Despite the passage of important laws to protect children's health from environmental hazards, students in some schools are still exposed to conditions that could affect their health. Deborah Prussel and Jean Tepperman report on four continuing parent-led campaigns to make Los Angeles schools safer for students. This article originally appeared in the September-October 2001 issue of the The Children's Advocate, published by Action Alliance for Children.

The national Center for Healthy Housing mission is to reduce children's risk of lead poisoning, allergens and irritants associated with asthma.

Though lead paint has been banned as an ingredient in interior paints since 1978, the product lingers on as a hazard to children, especially those living in older homes. Now Santa Clara County in California has sued the former manufactures of interior lead paint for medical and other costs associated with lead poisoning. Julee Newberger reports on what could become a new strategy for local governments looking for ways to fund more comprehensive lead-paint abatement programs.

There is growing evidence to support a connection between children's exposures to chemical elements in the environment and serious, sometimes irreversible neurological and physical damage. Learn more from Preventing Harm, a resource and action center on children and the environment.

This month, communities across the country take a Stand for Children. Find out what's going on in your area and online—and how you can help ensure that all children grow up in safe and healthy communities!