Teach Engineering
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one of several garbage patches around the world where garbage accumulates naturally. As part of a GIS unit that combines oceanography, environmental science, and life science, class members investigate...
Curated OER
The Trash We Pass
Where does our garbage go? What is the difference between a recyclable and non-recyclable item? Pose these important, but often overlooked, questions to your class and invite them to consider the lasting and damaging effects of the...
Curated OER
Garbage Plants
Students create plants out of garbage. They identify items that can be recycled and discuss natural resources. They share their creation with the class.
Curated OER
The Six Faces of Garbage
Students use the mathematics of surface area to approach the problem of garbage pollution from the classroom. After watching a video, students construct replicas of cereal boxes and compute their surface area.
Curated OER
Trash Bashing
Young scholars define trash, garbage, or solid waste, discuss ways of disposing of trash, list examples of biodegradable materials, and have trash relay race in order to sort trash into appropriate containers labeled biodegradable,...
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Waste and Recycling: Recycling and Energy Recovery
Reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover. Young environmentalists learn about the overwhelming amount of garbage produced and discover better ways to minimize their impact on Earth by learning the difference between garbage and recyclables.
Curated OER
Where Is Away?
Students explore garbage. In this landfill lesson, students investigate how much garbage is collected in landfills on average each day. Students discover hazardous materials that are disposed of improperly and the effects of these...
Bonneville
The Problem of Plastic Trash Islands
Trash collection can be a hassle, especially out in the ocean. The second of four parts in the Adrift in a Sea of Plastic unit has pupils research plastic trash islands in marine ecosystems. They investigate why they occur and potential...
Curated OER
A Lot Of Garbage
Young scholars collect their own garbage. For this recycling lesson, students keep their own garbage for a day in their own personal garbage bag and then consider methods to reduce wastefulness.
Curated OER
Trash a Pizza!
Young scholars investigate data about America's trash production. In this environmental lesson, students use statistics about what we throw away to create an art pie chart project called a "trash pizza."
Curated OER
After the Garbage Can: Where Does Our Trash Go?
Students explore how waste disposal has changed over time and what the current issues are. In this disposal instructional activity students collect data and create graphs.
NOAA
Turning the Tide on Trash: A Learning Guide on Marine Debris
The lessons in this learning guide are designed to increase youngsters' awareness of the impacts of marine debris and to teach them about pollution prevention techniques. This fabulous, 30-page packet is chock full of important...
Curated OER
The Zabbaleen, Cairo's Garbage Workers
Here is a fascinating human geography study of the Zabbaleen. They are a sub-class of people who work as garbage collectors in Cairo, Egypt. I can't say enough good things about this resource in my limited space here. It is fabulous! If...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
Related Lessons Break It
Students brainstorm about the kinds of things that they use at home and school each day. They consider the types of materials out of which these things are made. Keep a list of their repsonses on a large sheet of paper or on the blackboard.
Curated OER
Trash to Gas
Students experiment with biomass materials as alternative energy sources. In this biomass material lesson, students participate in an experiment with cow manure to determine how it can be used as an energy source. They record their data...
Curated OER
Mystery Bag of Trash
Students investigate recycling. For this recycling lesson, students sort through recyclable items and place them in proper bins. Students explain their choice at the end of the activity.
Curated OER
Lesson: After Nature: Dystopia and Detournement
Werner Herzog's film, Lessons of Darkness is the topic of this lesson on art, politics, and culture. Learners discuss the concepts of utopia, dystopia, detournment, and Scorched Earth then compose a paper which describes dystopian reality.
Curated OER
Turning the Tide on Trash: Marine Debris Curriculum
Seven pages of fascinating reading on marine debris preface the activities in this lesson plan. Four different activities are employed to simulate how the debris is distributed in the ocean and along beaches. Early ecology learners...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Good Litter, Bad Litter
Which ones can be thrown on the ground? Discover the difference between natural litter and unhealthy trash, helping scholars by using several examples. Use the information here to give them a basic background, but also encourage prior...
Curated OER
One Person's Trash: Breaking it down
Students research how trash is disposed of and make an edible landfill. In this trash lesson plan, students research proper trash disposal, and discuss how trash affects the community. Then they make an edible landfill.
Curated OER
Slash Trash! Reducing, Reusing and Recycling Our Way to Zero Waste
The other "Three Rs" are covered in this lesson: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Over four weeks, conservationists collect data about waste in their own homes. They combine their findings with those of other students in order to analyze...
Curated OER
Trash Disposal Choices
Students determine the differences between reusable, compostable and recyclable trash.
Curated OER
Trash: Past, Present and Future
Learners explore how much trash they create. In this recycling lesson, students define stewardship and conduct an experiment to see how much trash the class produces in a week. At the end of the week the learners propose ways to...