Curated OER
Fancy Packaging
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.
Curated OER
Making a Mini-Landfill
Students create a mini-version of a landfill. They examine the materials they use everyday and determine if they decompose or not. They identify the materials as renewable or nonrenewable as well.
Curated OER
What Will Biodegrade?
Students create their own landfill where they observe materials that will and won't biodegrade. In this biodegrading lesson, students discuss the concept of a landfill and what materials biodegrade into soil and which ones stay in the...
Curated OER
Waste Not Want Not
Students are introduced to the need to save natural resources. Through inquiry, hands-on activities, and problem solving, students increase their understanding of solid waste materials and the need to reduce, recycle, and reuse.
Curated OER
Biology and the Future
Can science help minimize the damaging effects of an oil spill? Get your scholars brainstorming how different types of scientists are involved in developing ways to clean up oil spills. A table is partly filled in, and students complete...
Curated OER
What a Waste
Students analyze components of garbage. They collect and sort a few days' worth of garbage. They chart the results of an investigation.
Curated OER
Discovering the Problem of Solid Waste
Students catagorize the types of garbage from going through a trash can provided by their teacher. They then chart the items on a graph and propose a solution to reduce the amount of garbage.
Curated OER
Landfills and the Potential for Groundwater Contamination
Students examine how a sanitary landfill is constructed, how it functions, and how waste and leachate affects the areas around the landfill. After a discussion about landfills and leachates, students construct a Sanitary Landfill Model...
Curated OER
Landfill Lounge
Students accurately construct a model of a sanitary landfill and identify the parts of the landfill and explain their function. They work in grous using a clear plastic box, modeling clay, soil and a variety of garbage to create their...
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
Solid Waste/Recycling
Young scholars see that when we throw away garbage, it usually ends up in a landfill. Landfill space is getting increasingly scarce, and every time we throw something away we throw with it the energy, the money, and the raw materials it...
Curated OER
Internet Research: Methane and Waste
Students conduct Internet research to discover the causes of methane and how to implement a waste action plan. They answer worksheet questions as they search Websites. On the Eduzone site students find information on reducing their own...
Curated OER
Soild Waste and Recycling
In this unit of lessons, students examine solid waste and recycling. They discover the concept of decomposition. They also observe the decomposition process and make observatins.
Curated OER
The Daily Waste Times
Students describe qualities of a newspaper article that make it effective. They define waste and identify local waste problems and practices, and select one component of a newspaper which communicates about the issue. issues of waste...
Curated OER
Integrated Solid Waste Management
Students examine the EPA's approach to integrated solid waste management. They read about source reduction, recycling, composting, waste-to-energy incineration, and land filling, and create symbols for each of the aspects of solid waste...
Curated OER
Recycling and Waste Management Debate
Students research issues about how a community should manage its garbage. Students present and debate solid waste management strategies by presenting multiple sides of the issue.
Curated OER
Trace Your Waste*
Students examine waste disposal programs in the area and record the information on a map along with ideas on where garbage should go.
Curated OER
The Landfill Loafers Meet the Wise Buys
Students discover recyclable materials and the proper disposal of those items through Internet research. Working in groups of four, they search the Internet for uses of recyclable materials. After research is complete, they participate...
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Environmental Sciences
Whether you are teaching environmental science in junior high or studying recycling in kindergarten, there is something for all in this set of lessons designed for environmental education. The 110-page packet comes with tips for teaching...
Curated OER
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Respect
Second graders study the vocabulary that is associated with recycling and tell what recycling is. In this recycling lesson, 2nd graders use flash cards and Concentration type games to learn the vocabulary associated with recycling. They...
Curated OER
Trash Pizza
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.
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
The Rotten Truth
Fourth graders watch a video about how much solid waste is produced by each person and how it is disposed of. Using the internet, they identify and interpret data on the type of trash thrown out the most. They offer possible solutions...
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.