Trying to plan an engaging elementary science unit on natural resources? Conserve your energy! This five-part series of lessons and hands-on activities has exactly what you need to teach young scholars about the importance of conservation.

Though it comprises only 5 percent of the world's population, the US generates 40 percent of the world's waste. Scholars learn about landfills, their safety, and other solid waste methods. They use experiments and research to learn more....

Students explore caring for their community. They select an area of a park to clean and collect trash. They place materials in trash bags to recycle plastic, paper, etc. They calculate the amount of items and percentages they collect...

Students examine trash for items to recycle and reuse.  In this trash lesson plan, students explore how people in the community can use recycled and reused items as they play a recycling game.

In this recycling worksheet, students sort a list of items as either trash or something that can be reused, recycled, or used in composting. This worksheet has 5 fill in the blanks in a chart.

Students look at ways to help the environment. For this recycling lesson, students watch a video on pollution and then collect trash at their school. They create posters to share with the school about the importance of recycling. 

Students participate in an environmental clean-up activity. In this environmental lesson, students travel to a local beach. Working in small teams, students collect trash from the local beach. Returning to school, students sort the trash...

In this recycling activity, 5th graders read a selection about recycling, renewable, and non-renewable resources. They answer 6 questions based on the reading by defining words, separating trash into renewable and non-renewable...

Students understand the importance of participating in recycling and clean-up efforts in the community. In this recycling lesson, students respond to questions after reading "The Wartville Wizard" by Don Madden. Students articulate...

Students observe the difference between degradable and non-degradable wastes. They create their own landfill in a jar by adding four or five pieces of garbage and then covering it with dirt and water. They make observations on what they...

For this ideal gas law worksheet, learners watch a demonstration using liquid nitrogen, a plastic 2 liter bottle and a garbage can of water that excites students to use the ideal gas law to solve problems. Learners analyze the results of...

Students conduct an experiment.  In this marine debris and environment protection lesson, students categorize trash into piles, predict whether these trash items will sink, float or be picked up and carried by the wind and then test...

Students determine the forces necessary to move a truck on an inclined plane with weight and slope as variables. They identify the cheapest way to transport trash to local garbage disposal sites.

Students determine the importance of recycling to reduce waste, to employ trash in useful ways, and to save the environment. They estimate the percentages of landfill waste that items constitute, based on what they found in their own...

Young scholars investigate the current environmental movement by cleaning up their own campus.  In this environmental care lesson plan, students practice cleaning their "environment" by picking up trash on their campus and decrease...

Learners consider the types of debris that litters beaches and conduct research on waste management. They then interview professionals in a particular field of waste management and write reports for a booklet about garbage and sewage to...

In this math worksheet, young scholars solve eleven math problems. These include finding the missing digits of an addition problem and solving a word problem about picking up pieces of trash.

Students read or listen to a story, and discuss how it relates to them. In this personal event writing activity, students write about recycling. Students read "The Giving Tree" a Shel Silverstein poem and discuss the poem's meaning....

Students make an island that has a construction site on it. They spill siulated pollution and trash on top of the island and then water it to simulate rain. They will observe how the rain washes dirt, sand, and pollution off the island...

Students become fluent readers by assessing the strategy of visualization to visualize each event in a story. They use imagery to visualize all types of literature. Each student receives a copy of "Sideways Stories from Wayside School,"...

Youngsters consider the amount of packaging used in manufacturing food and follow its travels through to the landfill. They brainstorm ways in which to reduce packaging and take a survey at home to evaluate ways they could reduce trash.

Middle schoolers investigate how democracy in the United States makes civic virtue possible. They examine the rights and responsibilities associated with democracy. In small groups, they create public service posters that highlight these...

Students work together to identify items sent to landfills. They summarize percentages of the different items found in landfills. They create a pizza pie graph of all of the components found in landfills.

Learners outline and discuss the steps necessary to tackle an environmental problem. They understand the process of recycling paper and discuss the importance of recycling efforts in fighting environmental problem.