Curated OER
Adaptive Reuse
Students identify historic buildings in their community that have been adaptively reused. Through "adopting" a building, they will study how recycling of buildings is an environmentally and economically sound practice for communities.
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Reduce and Reuse
Learners conduct a lunch waste audit by recording each item they throw away at lunch. They graph class lunch waste. They use this information to devise a plan of action to reduce lunch waste. There is also an activity to make paper.
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Solid Waste
Students examine how to use their vocabulary, writing skills, and creative thinking to address environmental concerns in this unit. They write messages to using creative writing to address the issues of solid waste and recycling.
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Making Paper
Students explore how natural earth materials are processed into a human-made product. They simulate a manufacturing process by making paper. Students review the importance of recycling in preserving our natural earth resources.
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Water Cycle Project
Students complete a water cycle project. In this Earth science lesson, students use recycled objects from around their homes to illustrate the water cycle. Students illustrate evaporation, condensation, precipitation, saturation, ground...
Curated OER
Plant a Seed
Students complete a seed and plant growth activity. In this plant growth lesson, students read about Lady Bird Johnson and then answer questions about her role in the beautification and the environment. Students participate in a seed...
Curated OER
Good Guys or Bad Guys
Sixth graders complete a variety of activities to explore both positive and negative effects of microorganisms. They, in groups, engage in a series of experiments which illustrate the effects of certain molds.
Curated OER
Tennis Ball Prints
Students experiment using abstract art techniques, tennis balls, and tempera paint in this excellent, outdoor art activity for the early-elementary classroom. The resulting art prints can be displayed predominantly in the classroom.
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KinderArt Drawing for Kids
Young scholars illustrate a creative adventure idea. In this arts and crafts lesson, students design drawings based on where they would like to go for an adventure. Before creating their illustrations, young scholars...
Curated OER
Toilet Paper Tube Snowman
Students create "toilet paper tube" snowmen using toilet paper rolls, paints, pipecleaners, construtcion paper, wiggly eyes, and markers in this winter-time activity. The lesson is intended for the early elementary classroom.
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Watermelon, Watermelon
Students create watermelon slices using red construction paper, paints, and watermelon rinds in this excellent elementary lesson for the end of the school year. The class is also able to enjoy eating watermelon slices during the activity.
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Listening to the Prairie
Pupils, in groups, visit an exhibit and for a prairie scavenger hunt to locate sunflowers and name products made from them. After sketching a prairie dog, they find nature cues farmers use when growing plants and raising animals. The...
Curated OER
Classroom Conservation
Fourth graders suggest ways paper and other natural resources can be used and recycled in the classroom. Students conduct a investigation into paper use and make distinctions among observations, conclusions (inferences), and predictions.
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Cockroaches
Students listen to a lecture on cockroaches. They work in pairs to design a cockroach trap and attempt to trap a specimen. They complete various other cockroach-related activities.
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The Web Of Life - Overlapping Food Chains
Students perform an activity in which they discover what happens when food chains overlap in an ecosystem and discover the three components of a food web.
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Solid Waste Management
Sixth graders examine the role of packaging of everyday products and urge manufacturers to reduce the amount of it. They also discover how many products they use everyday can be recycled.
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Our Landfill Future
Students use the internet to research articles on garbage, landfills and the environment. In groups, they identify ways to conserve or recycle materials found in landfills and determine the future of a local landfill. They share their...
Curated OER
Beeswax Flower Candle
Students create "Beeswax flower candles" in this early-elementary classroom Art lesson. Materials needed include foam pieces, straw, a glue gun, clay pots, beeswax, and popsicle sticks. This activity is ideal for the students to create...
Curated OER
What's In A Name?
Students analyze themselves as members of the community. They choose a name to describe themselves and explain why they choose the name they did. They identify activities they perform in and out of school to help the community.
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1Word and Letter Match Puzzle
In this word and letter match learning exercise, students match groups of 3 letters to words that contain each set. A reference web site is given for additional activities.
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Number Search in Monterey Bay Aquarium
Youngsters search for an animal with body parts for each number from one to ten during a field trip to an aquarium. They count rays, fins, feet, gills, eyes, spots or anything. When they get back to the classroom, they compile their...
Discovery Education
Perfectly Decomposed!
We all know someone who won't eat the banana with a brown spot, the grape with a dimple, and the apple with a bruise. Scholars use different fruits to explore what happens when fruits really start to decompose. They set up an experiment...
Curated OER
Paper Capers
Young scholars demonstrate how much paper is thrown away in their classroom in one week. They estimate the weight of paper used, weigh the paper at the end of five days, and discuss how students can use less paper.
Curated OER
When is a Block, not a Block?
Students use a stamped shape image to create a piece of imaginative art. In this stamped art lesson, students use a stamped shape as a starting point to create their own imaginative piece of art that incorporates the stamped shape.