Students investigate the recycling program in Palm Beach County. In this recycling instructional activity, students discuss how garbage is processed and identify the proper color-coded bins to place recyclables in.

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....

Does everything in the trash can belong there? Conduct a waste audit with your class by collecting a day's worth of garbage, separating it into recyclables, non-recyclables, or food waste, and properly distributing what they find into...

Encourage scholars to perform random acts of kindness. A lesson challenges participants to choose a peer they wish to be kind to without them knowing. Learners list five good deeds and choose one to fulfill. Pupils reflect on the process...

Students collect and categorize solid waste produced in the classroom. They weigh the waste that has been collected over one week's time, and separate it into recyclable and non-recyclable waste. They talk about the role of engineers in...

Students debate the pros and cons of police searching the trash of suspected drug dealers. Students collect background information, and students interview city officials and garbage collectors. Students develop a strategic plan for...

The objective of this lesson is to teach students about the importance of recycling. Initially, students have a chance to think about their impact on our planet by following the path that garbage takes. Students then learn about how...

More people, more garbage! Young environmentalists graph population growth against the amount of garbage generated per year and find a linear model that best fits the data. This is an older resource that could benefit from more recent...

Litter, garbage, and pollution are all addressed in a nice activity on waste and recycling. Learners discuss what litter is and how it affects the environment. Then, they sing a song about eliminating litter before going out on campus to...

Trash is where it's at! Using bags of garbage collected from the school, learners sort the contents into categories based on type of material and collect data on the results. The data may include weight, volume, and/or percent of the trash.

Learners discover what happens to their trash and garbage once it is collected off of the curb. In groups, they classify garbage and waste into seven different categories and estimate how much waste is created in each one. Using the...

Students explore the concept of philanthropy. In this service learning instructional activity, students examine what to do with waste as they plan and implement a strategy for controlling their school's trash.

Teach children that just because something is old, doesn't mean you have to throw it away with a reading of Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback. Engaging children with an arts and crafts activity in which they patch the...

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...

Young scholars pick an area that needs cleaning up and help clean up the trash in that place. In this clean up lesson plan, students pick either their home, school, or neighborhood to clean up and sort through the trash that they find.

Students complete recycling activities to learn how ordinary garbage can create a living organism. For this recycling lesson, students take a combination of seeds from used fruits. Students water and grow the plants from the recycled seeds.

Students explore the concept of philanthropy. For this service learning lesson, students pull together to clean up a community park and reflect on the experience through literature.

Learners view a seven minute video called Gorilla in the Greenhouse. In this Earth day instructional activity, students review the history of Earth day. Learners work in groups to describe the life cycle of a plastic bag. Students...

What's the best way to learn how watersheds work? Build one! Combining engineering, the water cycle, and ecology concerns, the activity is the perfect fit for an interdisciplinary unit. Teams construct a model watershed with simple...

A read-aloud anthology closely examines human impact on the Earth while boosting reading comprehension skills. Through stories, scholars examine the concepts of natural resources, pollution, garbage, and recycling and brainstorm...