SCIENCE BOX OVERVIEW
Kit #11
Name: “Garbage or Not?”
Grade Level: 2-4
Content Strand: Environmental Science
Content Standard and Description: Natural Resources – Students demonstrate and understand that all natural resources include renewable and non-renewable materials and energy. All organisms, including human, use resources to maintain and improve their existence, and the use of resources can have positive and negative consequences.
Content Standard and Description: Conservation – Students understand that humans have the unique ability to change personal and societal behavior based on ethical considerations regarding other organisms, the planet as a whole, and future generations.
Summary: By using cool hands on items such as an orange safety vest, a hard hat, and videos, students will learn all about the world’s trash problem and how they can do their part to help. Activities that will get the kids learning about trash include actually picking up their parking lot at school and learning how to recycle at home.
Learning Cycle Lesson Plans: Here is the list of the lesson plans in this kit.
1. “Identifying the World’s Garbage Problem” – Students will be able to identify the World’s garbage problem and demonstrate and explain why landfills aren’t the best way to dispose of trash. They will identify other alternatives to landfills (i.e. reducing, reusing, and recycling.)
2. “Community Helpers” – Students will be involved in the community by cleaning up the environment (park, school, etc.) and by reducing, reusing, and recycling trash.
What to Expect: By the end of this kit all students should know the following: Second graders know how to investigate and describe how some resources can be used and reused. Third graders will know that plus how to investigate and describe resources which can be used, reused, and renewed. Finally the fourth graders will know all of that plus be able to explain that many materials can be recycled and used again, sometimes in different forms.
Evaluations: Here is what other teachers have said about this box.