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Humans and Trash
First graders identify items for trash or recycling. In this humans and trash lesson, 1st graders are given a piece of trash and must determine how an animal's habitat would be affected if the item was included. Students discuss how to...
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Debris Dilemmas
Students examine debris, what it is, where it comes from and where they go. In this debris lesson students view a video, answer questions and discuss what they learned.
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Sorting "Good" Junk (Recycling)
Second graders study recycling. In this environment instructional activity, 2nd graders discuss how to sort trash, sort actual trash labeling it, and explore the trash writing new uses of each item of trash instead of throwing the...
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Don't Forget the Three R's
Students encourage one another in recycling. In this environment and art lesson, students create a new recycling bin that would help people in remembering to recycle.
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Garbage Dump
Students are introduced to landfills and the importance of reducing garbage. In this Earth Day lesson, students collect garbage they find on the ground. They take it back to a plastic bin and attempt to bury all the garbage only to find...
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No Impact Project: Food
Students explore their food choices and the impact of them to the environment as well as their quality of life. In this food choices lesson, students use the film and book from the project No Impact Man to explore the impact of food...
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Graphing Trash Material
Students investigate recycling. In this reuse and recycle instructional activity, students examine the number and kinds of materials they discard. It also encourages them to think about taking action by reusing and recycling some of...
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Tons of Trash
In this trash lesson plan, students record how much trash their family throws away. Students then calculate how much trash they would make in 1 week and in 1 year.
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Overpacking
In this packaging worksheet, students compare the amount of small bags of popcorn to large bags of popcorn and how much trash they create for equal amounts of food. Students follow 6 directions and answer 2 questions.
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Recycling and Waste Reduction
Students investigate recycling and waste reduction and its positive impact on the environment. In this environmental science instructional activity, students determine how and why materials are recycled. They apply their knowledge by...
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Junk Mail Overload!
Students discuss the "junk mail nuisance" with the teacher and share their opinions on the problem. Students collect a week's worth of junk mail, bring to class and complete a chart about the amount and weight. Students then complete an...
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Treacherous Trash
Students recognize the harmful effects people have on the environment. In this environmental lesson, students simulate water pollution clean-up by using tangled objects and untangling them in a cooperative group. Students identify why...
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Classroom Trash Audit
Students investigate solid waste. In this environmental lesson, students collect their own garbage for a day and analyze the weight and the percentage of recyclable items in their trash.
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Lesson: Litter Hunt
Students examine the issue of littering. In this waste management lesson, students discover what littering is and how it affects the environment.
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What is Trash?
Students consider what garbage is and where it ends up. In this recycling lesson, students read excerpts from Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little as they consider methods to reduce wastefulness.
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There Is No Away
Students identify how trash is disposed of. In this environmental lesson, students read and discuss the poem "Sarah Sylvia Stout" by Shel Silverstein and discuss the ways people treated the items in the poem. Students discuss how trash...
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Feed Me!
In this following directions activity students are given a activity with 25 pieces of trash. They then have to follow the directions of underlining, coloring, circling, and drawing the items that are described.
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Where Does Our Rubbish Go?
For this environmental issues worksheet, 5th graders read a two page text with photographs and statistics about the 3 methods of getting rid of trash: recycling, burning, burying. There are no questions to answer but there are some...
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A Load of Rubbish!
In this recycling instructional activity, students read 2 fact sheets about what garbage, or "rubbish" as it is called in the instructional activity, is made of. They then complete 2 activities and 1 project that is outlined on the...
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The Rotten Truth
Fourth graders watch a video about how much solid waste is produced by each person and how it is disposed of. Using the internet, they identify and interpret data on the type of trash thrown out the most. They offer possible solutions...
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Rate of Decomposition
Young scholars experiment with the decomposition rate of garbage. They discover that environments are fragile and need to be protected and resources are not always used wisely. They then think about their own environment and then about...
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How Long Does Trash Last
Students work in cooperative groups to estimate how long trash lasts in a landfill. They study environmental consequences of not recycling and use graph-making software to create a graph that illustrates the lifespan of trash items...
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Recycling: Causes of Pollution
Students read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss while focusing on similarities in their world and that of the Lorax by completing a worksheet. They examine the effects of pollution or garbage on the environment.
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Discovering the Problem of Solid Waste
Students catagorize the types of garbage from going through a trash can provided by their teacher. They then chart the items on a graph and propose a solution to reduce the amount of garbage.