Whenever anyone asks me how I got interested in the environment I tell them my earliest memories of thinking about the earth (apart from the obvious fact that we live in the environment, breathe the air, drink the water, walk on the soil... and my mum loves gardening and my dad loved bush walking..) - I always tell them about the game CONSERVATION.
The New Zealand board game CONSERVATION, invented by R. J. Reynolds in 1976, was a favourite of mine. I loved the smooth glass pieces which you collected and won 20 points for recycling; I loved 'picking up litter' and 'being a tidy Kiwi' and earning 5 points each time. I learnt that the worst place to land if you had items to be recycled or put in the bin was the TIP - because you had to put it all back and not earn any points. I loved the little I CARE cards that gave you some control over where you moved, instead of rolling the die, if you remembered in time.
I played other board games too - with my brother and sister and the girls over the road. We had long sessions of Monopoly in the summer holidays, in between hide and seek, bullrush, climbing and swinging in the willow trees and riding our bikes in the culdesac (a safe and quiet dead end road). Actually I don't think anyone else seems to remember playing CONSERVATION with me...