Eco-schools is a project of the National Wildlife Federation and empowers schools to manage their schools with a green focus. Scholars work to define environment and sustainability and springboard this into learning the eight pathways (biodiversity, energy, climate change, consumption & waste, etc). From this, they view a powerpoint and answer questions about Eco-Schools USA. 

Concepts

sustainability, environmental stewardship, energy

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Allow pairs to take the concept quiz so they can discuss their ideas

Classroom Considerations

• The lesson's duration—defining the words, watching videos, determining their pathways, and beginning the energy audit—takes one class period; to devise the plan and put it into action may require more time
• Could easily fit high schoolers as well with some small tweaks

Pros

• Identifying a problem, determining a solution, and seeing it come to fruition is empowering for classes
• Making a positive ecological change fills classes with a sense of pride

Cons

• Lesson has a fair number of links (for videos, PowerPoint presentations, audits, background information, etc.), some of which work, and requires a lot of reading on the part of the teacher to fully understand Eco-Schools USA

Common Core

RST.6-8.1