Math, Social Studies, English, Writing

(Grades 5-12)

“Buy Recycled! Seven Ways That Students Can Save Their Schools’ Money and Help the Environment” Teacher Guide
This guidebook provides the information and tools necessary for students to understand the relationship between a school’s purchasing practices and recycling. In straight-forward language, students identify a school’s environmental impacts. By applying the information in this guide to their school, students will become resourceful purchasers.

The guide designates seven product categories, within which a school makes purchase. Students then calculate the environmental benefits of buying recycled alternatives, as well as potential cost savings or increased costs, using spreadsheets. The guide is available on-line. Please note: the statistics in the guide are for Minnesota. Statistics for Ohio can be found here.

Hands-On Plastics Kit

(Grades K-4, 5-8, 9-12)

The American Plastics Council has created a recycled plastic kit containing samples of recycled plastic resins, products, and a CD-ROM. The CD-ROM contains classroom activities, experiments, games, background materials and an extensive topic-based link area. Subjects covered include the history of plastics, recycling, resource conservation, food safety and sports.

The kit was originally designed to help middle-level science teachers and their classes explore the world of plastics through a variety of lessons about chemical structures, resin identification codes, different forms of plastics and recycling. The program has been expanded to include activities for elementary school teachers called “Hands On Plastics, Jr. ™” which focuses on activities, games, and teacher backgrounders. Free kits are available.

 

“Toxtown”
(Grades 3-12, General Audience)
The website is an interactive guide to toxic substances commonly found in water, rivers, offices, stores, schools, parks, homes, and factories. Substances include arsenic, asbestos, carbon monoxide, lead, mercury, ozone, radon, and toluene.

Air to Earth Kit & Curriculum

(Grades 4-9)

Air to Earth (ATE) is an exciting environmental education program for grades 4-9, born of a collaboration with Nike, The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE), Eco Educators and The Natural Step.

Nike is acutely aware of the need to drive sustainability in everything we do and strives to minimize the environmental impact of our products throughout the product lifecycle. ATE encourages students to think about the Earth’s cycles and relate it to the “stuff” we use every day. By experimenting with material made from recycled athletic shoes, students study recyclability, are challenged to create their most effective recycled product, and discover the benefits of a sustainable environment.

The ATE curriculum includes lesson plans, activities, ground up materials from Nike athletic shoe, an actual Nike shoe, product samples manufactured from ground up materials, and a video. The ATE curriculum is an interactive set of cross-curricular lesson plans geared to learning by doing. Each lesson plan includes concepts, learning objectives, prep time, class time, materials, skills, subject areas, key vocabulary and extensive background. Each accompanying ATE kit contains enough material to sustain one class of 30 students for the term of the project.

A limited number of kits are available FREE for Hamilton County teachers by e-mailing your request to Susan Schumacher If you order it from Nike the retail cost is $24.