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This is from the Alabama Learning Exchange. Students will learn the difference between reusing, reducing, and recycling. Teachers could use this in their classroom, specifically, when learning about Earth Day or how to keep our planet green. It also has wonderful ways to integrate among other subjects: math, social studies, art, and cooking.

This resource contains a multiple day lesson plan for a third grade class. The lesson is about composting. It involves instruction by use of a Power Point, an outdoor exploration, and even an assessment. I selected this resource because it fits the standard to- obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth's resources and environment (5-ESS3-1). This standard will be the focus of my lesson in this course. Although this standard is for fifth graders, I believe this resource will still be useful. In order to make the resource at a fifth grade level only a few things need to be tweaked. The lesson plan in this resource could serve as an outline for the lesson plan I will be creating in this course.

This website includes several different lesson plans on recycling. The one that I enjoyed the most is teaching them how long trash lasts, discusses decomposing along with other things. The lesson plan includes what subject areas are included in the lesson, a brief description, grades, objectives, keywords, materials, along with many other key components. It is a very good lesson for teachers to use as a guideline.

While this is interesting information, the activity focuses on a lot of guessing without linking to prior experience or involving students in finding out for themselves. You say "guideline" as a use, and I would suggest it be only that, perhaps related to a unit on food chains that involves the concept of decomposition. Students could design their own experiment to observe the decomposition of different objects over time.

What I liked about this website was the fact that it has a section for teachers and parents, and also an interactive website for the young ones. It teaches the students about the importance of the environment, and how important it is to take care of it. There are games, videos, and create your own "EekoCreature". In the teacher section, it includes lesson plans for K-4. Each lesson plan includes an overview, objectives, subject area, other internet links, background, steps, several activities, and standards. I also liked the fact that it comes from a PBS website.

This is a lesson plan involving the causes of pollution. This lesson talks about the negative effects pollution has on our lives, things that cause pollution, and ways to help make our Earth a cleaner place. The students are allowed to be creative and find their own ways to stop pollution and become active. I would use this in my future classroom because it allows all of my students to be involved in helping the world we live in.

When you breathe in, your diaphragm - the muscle at the base of your lungs, contracts. This expands your chest cavity, lowering the air pressure of the cavity below the air pressure outside, and inflating the lungs. You can see this same principle at work in this 'homemade lung'. This activity will definitely keep students interested. It's all hands-on and will allow them to be able to visualize an action, breathing, that is constantly occurring within their own bodies. I chose this activity because I think so many don't actually understand what is happening within their own bodies, and by being able to visualize this action I think makes it easier to understand. This activity has the students making a "homemade lung" out of simple supplies and then observing how our chest cavities contract and our lungs inflate. I could see myself using this activity when discussing the human body, in particular lungs. It is so important that the students understand how the body functions and I think that this activity does a great job in illustrating that.

Composting is the oldest form of recycling. It provides an opportunity for students to observe the decomposition process and energy cycle at work; produces a valuable soil supplement; and reduces the amount of organic material requiring a landfill or incineration. This is a neat hands on lesson that can last up to the whole year! The students get to understand the process of composting and will learn that there we can use other methods of eliminating our trash. My favorite part is that they get to physically see what is happening in the soil. I would start this activity towards the beginning of the year. The students can volunteer to bring in items from the materials list to help feel involved in the prep. I would have the students keep a journal about the chances they see when we check on the compost bin.