Chymist
Landfills and Recycling
Examine the nature of landfills through experimentation. Scholars build miniature landfills and monitor changes over a six-week period. Observations allow individuals to draw conclusions about the different types of trash and their...
Curated OER
Recycle, Reduce, Reuse and Save a Tree
Students examine how to save and protect trees. For this conservation lesson, students read books about the usefulness of trees, write ideas in their journals about how trees can be used, and make a book of ways to protect trees.
Curated OER
Fitting Trash into Yesterday: A Fifth Grade Activity
Fifth graders explore the concept of waste management. In this recycling lesson, 5th graders discover the history of waste management and discuss how the U.S. should respond to the issue of ever-increasing waste.
Curated OER
Recycled Treasures
Students develop creative-thinking skills that they will use repeatedly throughout their life. In this early childhood art lesson plan, students develop creative-thinking, social-development, and language skills, and an awareness of the...
Curated OER
The High Cost of Chemical Dependency
Sixth graders explore, analyze and study the effect and impact that humans have on the environment based on their choices as individuals, businesses and governments. They assess the balance between human activities and aquatic pollution.
Forest Foundation
Nature's Treasure Chest
Renewable, recyclable, and biodegradable. As part of their study of the forest ecosystem, class members read "Nature's Treasure Chest" about the many products made from trees and then craft their own recycled paper.
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...
Curated OER
Scientific Inquiry
Students create a poster. In this recycling lesson, students discuss pollution and the ways humans negatively affect the environment. Students describe examples of litter or pollution they have experienced. Students collect litter from...
Curated OER
Scientific Inquiry, Episode 1
Students look at ways to help the environment. In 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.
Curated OER
The Environment and You
First graders examine the human environmental impact and discover ways to lessen effects. They create a pollution damage flow chart and write down what they think Mother Earth might say. They create inventions from recyclable materials.
Curated OER
Life size figures - Moveable Murals
Students create life-size human figures and decorate them in a collage style with torn colored pieces of pictures from magazines. They display them around the school, creating life-size murals.
Curated OER
Think Green
THINKGREEN has a computer printer cartridge collection program. After reading the story of how Assumption Secondary School in Burlington, Ontario started participating in the THINKGREEN recycling program, pupils work in groups of three...
Curated OER
Making Paper
Students read about the history of paper production and make their own recycled paper. In this paper making lesson, students follow the directions to make paper from recycled paper. Students also learn about making paper from live plants.
Chicago Botanic Garden
Personal Choices and the Planet
The last activity in the series of four has individuals determine steps they can take to reduce their carbon footprints and then analyze their schools' recycling programs. Through a sustainability audit, they identify how and where their...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Introducing Ecosystem Services
Purifying air and water, providing soil in which to grow crops, and moving water through its natural cycle are all services an ecosystem provides that benefit humans. Lesson four in a series lets learners explore and discuss the value of...
Curated OER
Standard 4 Review-Human Impact
In this human impact on the environment worksheet, students fill in the blanks to complete sentences about how humans have negatively affected the environment. They complete sentences about the actions taken to reduce and repair the...
Curated OER
Renewable and Non-renewable Resources
Students play Lobster Bingo on a provided worksheet. This game demonstrates how human activities and natral events affect lobsters by impacting their food, clean water, and shelter of the reef.
Curated OER
Recycling: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
Students journal information regarding recycling from previous research. They use Microsoft Word to write their entries regarding recycling that is used in oral and video presentations. They visit "Green School" sites on the Internet to...
Curated OER
Solid Waste and Recycling
In this unit of lessons, middle schoolers examine solid waste and recycling. They discover how litter is a major part of human waste. They also collect newspaper for recycling.
Curated OER
Environment and Recycling Issues
First graders read and understand the text found while conducting internet research. They recognize how literature records information and reflects the human experience. Students also compare and contrast answers to questions. Then...
Curated OER
How Will We Create a Future without Waste?
Many young people act globally by reducing, reusing, and recycling, Now they take it to the next level by upcycling. Middle schoolers design a proposal to eliminate waste by exploring the new material cycle and applying their knowledge...
WE Charity
High School–Module 2: Circular Economy and Nature
Everyone's heard the popular slogan reduce, reuse, recycle, but there may be a better way to talk about sustainability. Using the second lesson from the five-part WE Are Innovators—High School Modules series, learners explore issues...
Curated OER
Dunk It! Don't Junk It!
Third graders explore the concept of sorting recyclables. In this recycling instructional activity, 3rd graders determine how to separate recyclables from waste and how to sort recyclables into different categories.
Virginia Department of Education
Go with the Flow
How does nature's hierarchy relate to our local human environment? Answer this question, along with others, as the class visually depicts the natural hierarchy provided by nature. Pupils discuss each piece of the pyramid and its energy...