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Making a Mini-Landfill
Students examine the materials that comprise the products they use. Students describe whether these materials are renewable or nonrenewable resource. Students observe what happens to materials when placed in a landfill.
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Fireplace Logs from Newspapers
Students discuss the topic of recycling. They identify items that can and cannot be recycled. They practice using their newspaper to make other items.
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Making a Mini-Landfill
Students create a mini-version of a landfill. They examine the materials they use everyday and determine if they decompose or not. They identify the materials as renewable or nonrenewable as well.
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Rubber Gardens
Students recycle discarded automobile tires and create gardening sites for limited space areas.
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Litter Prevention
Students determine why litter is undesirable and that littering is a behavior that can be changed. They rank a variety of litter items from "most undesirable" to "least undesirable" and discuss their reasoning. They group the "litter"...
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Paper, Microorganisms, and Biocides
Learners study the paper making process and discuss the implications of recycling paper. Students conduct a lab to determine if microorganisms are present in different solutions used in the papermaking process today.
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Making Paper
Students explore how natural earth materials are processed into a human-made product. They simulate a manufacturing process by making paper. Students review the importance of recycling in preserving our natural earth resources.
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Water Cycle Column
Students use common materials to construct a working model of the water cycle. They then observe and explain evaporation, condensation, precipitation and percolation as aspects of a continuing cycle. Students also complete worksheets and...
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Building on the Power of Your Ideas
Students examine a sculpture walkway by artist Jackie Ferrara and discuss the relationship of materials to function. They analyze the sculpture and answer discussion questions, and design and construct a model of a walkway for the school.
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Worms in a Bottle
Students gain a better understanding of the worm and its role in the recycling of organic materials into simpler forms by constructing worm bottles and observing for 60 to 90 days.
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Water Cycle Project
Young scholars complete a water cycle project. In this Earth science lesson, students use recycled objects from around their homes to illustrate the water cycle. Young scholars illustrate evaporation, condensation, precipitation,...
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Solid Waste
Students examine how to use their vocabulary, writing skills, and creative thinking to address environmental concerns in this unit. They write messages to using creative writing to address the issues of solid waste and recycling.
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Water Cycle in a Bag
Young scholars participate in a hands-on activity that demonstrates how the water cycle functions. Students look specifically at condensation and evaporation during the recycling of water.
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Adaptive Reuse
Students identify historic buildings in their community that have been adaptively reused. Through "adopting" a building, they will study how recycling of buildings is an environmentally and economically sound practice for communities.
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Brown Bag Kites
Young scholars observe and discuss kites and how they function. They apply recycled materials to kite making. They utilize and develop self-expression. They appreciate art made by others and themselves. They fly their kites.
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Marvelous Magnets
Students identify and classify magnetic and nonmagnetic materials and metals. After determining which materials and metals are magnetic, students create a data table and classify items by two different criteria. Students e-mail various...
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A GROWING MARKET
Middle schoolers reasearch and grow a plant and present findings. They are told that bedding plant is the name for young plants grown. Students choose one plant to research and they use their worksheet to create an information sheet...
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NECESSARY WRAPPERS?
Students bring in a packaged item to unwrap. They weigh the pile of packaging and pile of product and determine which weighs more. They identify the source of raw materials for packaging and discuss ways to reduce packaging and overall...
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It's a Wrap!
Students study two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects by assembling a sculptural piece from something very flat - pieces of newspaper or wallpaper. They see what materials people used to make clothing during the depression.
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It's A Gas
Students build an organic waste methane generator and learn by running a scientific experiment to see what happens when people alter nature's way of recycling.
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Pollution Prevention At Ft. Riley
Student examine methods of pollution reduction used at Ft. Riley military institution. Learners review the economic impact of the use of enviromentally sensitive materials.
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Solid Waste Management
Sixth graders examine the role of packaging of everyday products and urge manufacturers to reduce the amount of it. They also discover how many products they use everyday can be recycled.
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The Rotten Truth
Students study the process of decomposition using lunch leftovers and soil. They complete the inquiry over set periods time as they observe the how composting takes place and finally, they sort the materials into biodegradable,...
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Classroom Conservation
Fourth graders suggest ways paper and other natural resources can be used and recycled in the classroom. Students conduct a investigation into paper use and make distinctions among observations, conclusions (inferences), and predictions.