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3 Holiday Projects
Students explore the concept of reusing and recycling everyday materials and make holiday-oriented decorations and gift wrapping. Letters containing environmental issues are composed and sent to political and corporate decision-makers.
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Invention
Students discuss the importance of recycling to the environment. They classify different objects and put them into the correct recycling bin. They create their own invention out of recycled materials.
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3-D Posters
Students work in small groups to create 3-D posters to discourage throwing trash away and encourage recycling.
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MAKING PAPER FROM PAPER
Pupils tear paper into very small pieces and follow a formula to make recycled paper. They follow up with a discussion about the quality of their paper and its benefits.
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Christmas Potpourri Hangers
Learners create a potpourri hanger. In this Christmas craft activity, students reuse materials to make a Christmas potpourri hangar for the tree or for a gift.
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Invention
Students create an invention, or simple machine, out of items taken from the recycling bin. Students draw diagrams of their proposed inventions, then create simple machines.
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Where Shoult it Go?
Students label boxes and sort trash into those items that can be recycled, composted, incinerated or taken to the landfill.
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Mini-Sanitary Landfill
Second graders work in groups to bury a variety of trash items and arrange them in a mini-landfill. They predict which items will biodegrade and then keep records of what the items look like every ten days. Students consider how...
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1-Use, 2-Use, Re-Use, New Use
Students list the possible uses of grocery bags. They trace the steps of a grocery bag either to recycle or trash. In groups, students use the grocery bags to create posters promoting reuse.
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Compost Columns
In this unit of lessons, students examine the role of compost columns and recycling. They create a KWL chart about garbage in Chicago. They also examine life cycles and packaging of everyday products.
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Growing With Compost
Students discuss the positives and negatives of composting. They plant their own plant using composting material and record results. They create a poster for the classroom.
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Positively Paper
Students discover how paper is recycled. In this recycling lesson, students investigate which types of paper recycle best and are best for the environment.
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Going Green School Campaign
Learners explore ways to make their school's interior and exterior environmentally 'green.' In this environmental concern lesson, students work in groups to examine their school's interior and exteriors to make them 'green.' Learners...
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Safe Subs
Students investigate ways to reduce use of hazardous materials. In this safe substitutes lesson, students review hazardous wastes used in many homes and possible safe substitutes for these harmful chemicals. Students write and decorate...
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Land Art
Students use natural materials outside to create a work of art. For this land art lesson plan, students plan their sculpture inside in one day and create it outside over a period of 2 days.
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Thinking about Energy
Students examine their understandings about energy concepts by completing an online survey. Students participate in a class discussion about their uses of resources and the differences between perpetual, renewable, and nonrenewable...
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Gandhi's "Good Life"
Eleventh graders use a Gandhian lens to analyze critically materialism in a capitalist society. In this Gandhian philosophy lesson plan, 11th graders cultivate awareness, explore materialism and sustainability, examine the idea of 'what...
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A Growing Market
Young scholars research plants and the bedding plant industry and then make a list of materials they need to plant seeds. In this planting lesson plan, students then plant their seeds, chart their progress, and write what they have learned.
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Reusing Winter Waste
Students use waste materials to build a snowman decoration. In this reusing lesson, students create a new object out of disposable items left over from the holidays. Students discuss ways of cutting down waste. Students understand how...
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Gettysburg Rocks Recycle to Win
Eighth graders use a geologic cross section to study the rock cycle of the Gettysburg battlefield. In this rock cycle lesson plan, 8th graders connect the rock cycle and continental rifting.
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How Can We Reuse It?
In this recycling worksheet, students view a picture of a structure on a piece of land and brainstorm about whether it is best to knock down the structure and reuse the land or leave it standing and reuse the structure. The picture of...
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Recyclers to the Rescue
Fifth graders examine the concept of the food chain and define producer, consumer, herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore. They draw a food chain for a mouse and discuss the different organisms involved in the chain, and conduct an...
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PAPER RECYCLING
Students examine the availability and use of important resources, people practice conservation. They explore the needs of an expanding human population, societies practice resource management and employ technology.