Curated OER
Earth Day Theme Activities
Students make recycled animals. In this Earth Day lesson, students use recycled materials to create artistic animals. A game, a song, a craft, and a recipe are all included with the lesson.
Curated OER
U.S. Geography: The Northeast
Students investigate U.S. Geography by creating a map in class. In this natural resource instructional activity, students create a map of the United States and research the Northeast based on their resources and recyclable...
Curated OER
Fancy Packaging
Youngsters consider the amount of packaging used in manufacturing food and follow its travels through to the landfill. They brainstorm ways in which to reduce packaging and take a survey at home to evaluate ways they could reduce trash.
Curated OER
Think Green
Students experience and practice compositing and recycling through hands-on-activities. They distinguish between which items from their trash can be recycled, composted and reused. The process for making recycled paper is also covered in...
Curated OER
Trash Disposal Choices
Students investigate the use of landfills. In this landfill use and recycling lesson, students discuss what happens to trash and junk. They review the types of trash before categorizing a list of items they throw away each day. They...
Curated OER
Mixing Up Magic
Students explore the relationship between art and science through experimenting with color, design and recycled materials and creating their own art work.
Curated OER
Kari's Earth Care
Students explore caring for their community. They select an area of a park to clean and collect trash. They place materials in trash bags to recycle plastic, paper, etc. They calculate the amount of items and percentages they collect...
Curated OER
Garbage Routes
Students brainstorm a list of places where garbage is disposed. Working in groups, they discover through a classroom simulation how garbage can wither be recycled or hauled to a landfill. they complete the activity with a worksheet on...
Curated OER
Recycle
Students determine the weight of paper waste generated by the class. They brainstorm ways to reduce and recycle. They make their own paper to demonstrate recycling. This lesson plan is very effective in demonstrating how recycling works.
Curated OER
Aluminum Altruism
Students explore the value of recycling. They consider the importance of giving back to their school community. They calculate their earnings using multiplication and addition.
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The Trash We Pass
Students engage in a study of trash and how it is disposed of in the environment. They also research the impact of recycling and its effects upon the disposal amounts. Students calculate the advantages of recycling using real world...
Curated OER
The Berenstain Bears Don't Pollute (Anymore)
Students listen to the story, The Berenstain Bears Don't Pollute (Anymore). They create a Venn Diagram comparing it with the story, The Lorax. Then students plan ways to become advocates for recycling.
Curated OER
Recycled Water?
Students participate in a hands-on activity to investigate how water is recycled in a small environment, and determine how water is cycled on earth.
Curated OER
Materials 1: Materials and Manufacturing
Students examine the properties, limitations, and durability of a variety of materials, then evaluate which of the materials would be best for building a model house. If used in its entirety, this lesson could take several science class...
SF Environment
Compost Tag
Composting is a great way to get children involved in recycling. First, they discuss how biodegradable products decompose to make compost. Then, they talk about what can and cannot be composted. They play a game similar to around the...
Curated OER
Protecting Natural Resources
Third graders recognize what our natural resources are and their importance. For this natural resource recycling lesson, 3rd graders understand why it is important to recycle and conserve natural resources. Students can explain how...
NASA
Cleaning Water
From their sweat to the water vapor in their breath, astronauts recycle every possible drop of water while in space. After watching a short video describing the different ways materials are recycled and reused in space...
Curated OER
Trash Talkin
Middle schoolers investigate recycling at several scales, including local, state, national and global. They become aware of recycling, re-use, reduce efforts and policies. Students read the article Where Does Your Garbage Go. They look...
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 instructional activity about the different ways we can dispose of garbage. Using a trash bag...
Curated OER
Crafting Models of Efficiency
Young scholars build and compare models of both an energy inefficient and efficient classroom. For this energy efficiency lesson, students creatively use recycled materials to build two separate classroom models. They factor in concepts...
Curated OER
How Do Our Attitudes Affect Waste?
Students conduct a survey of society's typical purchasing practices to determine the influence of packaging on consumer choices and to determine if consumers consider waste disposal and recycling when making purchasing decisions.
Curated OER
What Is Special About Polyethylene Food Storage Bags?
Students participate in an investigation in which they compare a polyethylene bag designed for recycling or disposal with a polyethylene food storage bag. Students use hexane to determine the differences between the low density...
Education Outside
Papermaking
Imagine recycling food scraps and using them to make paper. The directions are all here in a seven-page packet that details several paper-making strategies.
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...