Curated OER
Texas Recycles Day: A Sample School-Wide Environmental Event
Students participate in a recycles day. They research how recycling benefits the environment. They also compete in a paper products recycling contest.
Curated OER
Recycling Statistics
In this environment worksheet, students look for the answers to the environmental impact of recycling in Great Britain with the statistics from the pie graph.
Curated OER
Com-Post With Us? Learn About Recycling While Having Fun
Students examine the importance of recycling to help the environment. In groups, they make a compost bin on the school grounds recording how the material changes from week to week. They collect other materials for recycling like cell...
Curated OER
Separation Before Plastic Recycling
Pupils participate in a demonstration to test the different densities of plastics, and suggest a method that plastic waste can be separated and collected.
Curated OER
Windsor Opposes Waste - WOW!
Students participate in paper recycling. They are taught to environmental awareness of recycling and its importance in their future. Students discuss and identify the problems of how they can minimize waste. They brainstorm suggestions...
Curated OER
Waste, Then and Now
Students discuss and compare the waste disposal habits of today with those of Native Americans of long ago.
Curated OER
Food Webs
Fourth graders discover how organisms depend upon each other in an ecosystem. In this ecosystems lesson, 4th graders use food webs to discuss the interdependence between organisms in an ecosystem.
Dick Blick Art Materials
“Gawu” — African-influenced Tapestry
Here's a great way to combine environmental science with art. Kids use recycled materials to create their own Gawu, a tapestry made of discards. Although designed for special education classrooms, the activity is sure to engage all...
Curated OER
Garbage Pizza
Fourth graders explore the concept of waste management. In this recycling lesson, 4th graders identify materials that must be landfilled as well as items that may be recycled or reused.
Curated OER
Fan 3: Sort and Color!
Students explore the concept of recycling. In this environmental stewardship lesson, students discover how to recycle and compost. Students complete an activity that requires them to sort recyclable items.
Education Outside
Natural Dye Tie-Dye
Up-cycle, or reprocess waste materials, into colorful tie-dye clothing or banners with an activity that uses fruits and vegetable juices as dye sources.
Curated OER
Lunchroom Trash
Students explore the amount of waste produced by humans. In this ecology lesson, students predict which lunch bag and its contents will produce the most waste. Leftover material is examined, amounts are recorded, and a bar graph is...
Curated OER
A Review of Lessons and Options
Students participate in a number of activities that reinforce the knowledge they have learned from previous units over waste management.
Curated OER
All Wrapped Up
Students work in teams to identify and sort types of packaging used in food production. They consider ways to reduce the environmental impact of packaging and reflect how consumer choices play a role in trash production.
Curated OER
Environment: Waste Walk
Students assess the positive and negative affects of humans on the environment. The lesson explores ways in which individuals and societies can reduce the negative impact on the environment. By taking a "waste walk" around their campus,...
Curated OER
Trash Check
In this trash worksheet, learners keep track of all the trash they accumulate in one day. They categorize the trash into groups including recycled, reusable, hazardous waste and food scraps. They brainstorm as to how they can reduce the...
National Park Service
Reduce Our Carbon Footprint, Let’s Compost!
Roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty with this elementary and middle school compost lesson. All you need is a large plastic container, a couple old newspapers, some organic waste, and a few hundred worms and you're ready to start...
Curated OER
Now You See It, Now You Don't
Students explore organic and inorganic objects. In this environmental lesson plan students perform a composting experiment using flowers in different soils. Students record their observations.
Curated OER
Protecting Our Planet
Students examine the impact of pollution. In this pollution lesson, students watch Protecting Our Planet, then participate in a simulation of the effect of pollution on a variety of organisms.
Curated OER
Learning About Composting
Students can create a compost pile to learn about the decomposition process.
Captain Planet Foundation
P is for Poppies
Explore the way local farming and rationing helped the war effort in World War I with a lesson plan on gardening. After learning about trench warfare, reading "In Flanders' Field" by John McCrae, and studying poppies, kids discuss the...
United Nations
Compost Monitor Training
What should go in the trash, and what can be composted? Guide your young conservationists through the process of composing their trash with a lesson about the different ways we can dispose of garbage. Using a trash bag with clean...
California Academy of Science
Composting: A Scientific Investigation: California Academy of Sciences
Garbage, recycle, compost: Does it really matter where we put our trash once we are done? By making detailed observations over seven weeks, kids will see which materials break down naturally to become a healthy part of the soil, and...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Calculating Your Ecological Footprint
You can lower your ecological footprint by recycling! Lesson four in this series of five has individuals, through the use of a computer, calculate their ecological footprints. Through discussions and analysis they determine how many...