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...
Berkshire Museum
Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle: Sorting Through Personal Choices
Raise children's awareness about the importance of conservation with this hands-on science lesson. Start by breaking the class into groups and having them collect trash from around the school or local park. Students then use the provided...
Curated OER
Recycling and Composting
Students set up composting sites that allow food scraps and paper to be recycled by nature. They are introduced to one aspect of recycling; composting. Students see how God recycles as the worms change garbage into something that brings...
Curated OER
Eco-Healthy Lunch
Students plan healthy lunches and how to dispose of their lunch waste. In this pre-field trip lesson, students and teachers plan healthy, nutritious lunches to bring on a field trip. They also discuss how to sort their garbage into the...
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
Trash: Past, Present and Future
Young scholars 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 young scholars propose...
Curated OER
School Yard Waste
Fourth graders examine the types of garbage that they collect on the playground. They collect the information in a spreadsheet and create a graph that displays the number of types of trash found. They design and monitor a playground...
Curated OER
Don't Trash the Earth
Students experience a hands-on environmental science project. They access about recycling as they collect data on their own family's trash production. Students analyze the data with worksheets, chart the data, and present their findings.
Curated OER
Landfill Project
Students explore impact of garbage on environment, examine waste management operations and how they can directly impact environment, implement ways to lower household garbage, and make STELLA Model about garbage flow and use model to...
Curated OER
Recycling by Composting
Middle schoolers examine the idea of recycling by composting. Using the internet, they research the benefits of composting to the environment. In groups, they collect numbers on how much food and yard waste is produced in their...
Curated OER
Aluminum Can Drive
Second graders complete a recycling project to clean-up their school. In this service project lesson, 2nd graders assess their campus for litter, set up a recycling project, clean up their campus, and recycle the trash. Students also...
Curated OER
Excavating the Trash
Students look at a day's accumulation of recyclable trash from first through fifth grade classrooms, not knowing which classes it came from. After setting up a collection sheet for data, students remove items from the receptacle and...
Curated OER
Three R's to Environmental Stewardship: Earth Day
Students explore the ways to conserve our natural resources. In this recycling, reusing, and reducing lesson students read Dinosaurs to the Rescue and apply their findings to learning ways to conserve resources. Students complete a...
Curated OER
Lunchroom Trash
Students explore the amount of waste produced by humans. For this ecology lesson, students predict which lunch bag and its contents will produce the most waste. Leftover material is examined, amounts are recorded, and a bar graph is...
Radford University
Pollution and Curves of Best Fit
Don't put the resource on curves of best fit out on the curb. Using researched data on trash and recycling, scholars create scatter plots and regression curves to analyze the information. As a culminating activity, they complete projects...
Curated OER
The Environment
Students participate in three stations in which they are made aware of the environment, ways to preserve it, the importance of preserving it and their part in preserving it. They discuss where items are found, recycling, and...
Curated OER
Separation Before Plastic Recycling
Students participate in a demonstration to test the different densities of plastics, and suggest a method that plastic waste can be separated and collected.
Curated OER
Solid Waste Takes Over
Young scholars explore solid waste and its effects on the environment. They explain some of the major problems caused by waste disposal and the use of landfills. They suggest ways to reduce the amount of solid waste going into a landfill.
Curated OER
What Is Special About Polyethylene Food Storage Bags?
Students participate in an investigation in which they compare a polyethylene bag designed for recycling or disposal with a polyethylene food storage bag. Students use hexane to determine the differences between the low density...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
All I Want for Christmas is a Nice, Clean Earth
Students observe properties of items, determine time it takes for organic/inorganic items to decompose, identify differences/similarities between decomposition, identify practical uses in litter/garbage control, & establish reasons...
PBS
Blow the Roof Off!
Blow the minds of young scientists with this collection of inquiry-based investigations. Based on a series of eight videos, these "hands-on, minds-on" science lessons engage young learners in exploring a wide range of topics from making...
Curated OER
Ecology of the Dump
Students recreate landfills in petri dishes, observe relative biodegradability in a year-long project, and isolate a cellulose degrading bacteria while discovering the need for recycling and the serious problem waste management has...
Curated OER
Rubber Gardens
Students recycle discarded automobile tires and create gardening sites for limited space areas.