One Person’s Junk Is Another Person’s Treasure

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What the Word Needs Now
The planet needs help. People created the problems, so it’s up to people to solve them. The atmosphere is warming up, leading to serious storms and causing the ice caps to melt. Pollution from fact

Children Are the Future
As all good teachers know, children are the future. If you’re reading the daily headlines about global warming and pollution, the future can look pretty unappealing and downright scary. Yet there a

Walk the Talk
Having a green classroom does not simply mean that you incorporate environmental concepts into your curriculum. It’s not just about teaching sustainability; it’s about trying to live it every momen

Sustainable School Supplies
When you’re shopping for the basic supplies for your classroom, look for Earth-friendly options. Here are some examples: Choose paper that has been processed chlorine free (PCF), to

Taking It Outdoors
As much as possible, take your students outside. Getting it touch with nature makes people more apt to want to protect it. Even if you’re not specifically teaching an environmental concept at the t

Curriculum Connections
You likely have a very plate of concepts you need to teach your students in order to meet grade and testing requirements. How can you squeeze in more? Fortunately, the concept of nature, ecology, a

Events to Inspire
If you’re having a tough time linking the concepts of sustainability with your established curriculum, get creative and take it beyond school hours by hosting events that the children coordinate. Y

Prompting Parents
Every teacher knows that a student’s academic success is largely determined by parental involvement. Successfully nurturing a child who cares about the environment and two takes action to protect i

Keeping It Real
There is not perfect prescription for going green. Everyone has to do it their own way. Just as every child learns in different ways, some of the activities in this book will be more successful tha

Find the Personal Connections
People are a part of web of life. Make global issues important to your students by discussing how they ultimately impact their lives in your community. Industrial pollution or agricultural runoff u

Storytelling
It’s innate to human cognition that stories influence thought and behavior. You can lecture all day long and spew facts and statistics until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t have the same impa

Accentuate the Positive
It is extremely important that you don’t scare your students. It sounds obvious, but it can be challenging when you’re discussing environmental destruction and global warming. People of all ages qu

Eco-Friendly Fundraising
Say goodbye to candy and plastic trinkets and hello to high-quality, useful products that people want a need. Here are five resources for innovative, green fundraising that can earn money and educa

Economical Education
Another way to earn money is by saving money. For example, if you have a certain budget for buying paper, cut back on how much paper you use by using both sides and talking advantage of other reduc

Meet Your Major Headings
Most of the chapters of this book are organized exactly the same to make is easier for you to get into rhythm of addressing the entire picture about a particular issue. Here’s what the areas are ca

Earth-Friendly Farming
With so many people living in cities, children (and adults!) often have no idea where their food comes from how it is grown or raised. Establishing an intimate connection between you and your food

Big, Big, Big Farms
Farms grow food, but they’ve also grown in size over time. Have your students draw their own garden from a bird’s-eye view. Have you ever grown or seen a vegetable garden? Imagine that everything y

The Natural Recipe for Farming
People can farm without hurting the planet if they keep the planet in mind while they’re farming. Organic or sustainable farms try to grow food and raise animals as close to what Mother Nature inte

Earthworm Survey
Spring is the ideal time to check for earthworm activity. Wait until the soil temperature is at least 50F and soil moisture content at the surface is 20 percent or more. Using a shovel or spade, di

Big Planet, Little Land
The planet Earth is very large, but there’s really not that much space on it for farming, which means it’s important to protect the soil on the farmland. You can demonstrate how very little farmlan

Play with Your Food
Have fun with food by having your students create food puppets and write a play that can teach younger students. Divide the classroom into pairs or small groups. Sign each of them a simple food lik

Flat Farmers
Ifyou were a farmer, what kind of food would you grow or what kind of animals would you raise? Have each child pick one thing and then go around the classroom to discuss how that food grows or how

Petite Patch
Herb gardens are easy to grow indoors, and they give children a chance to grow a plant that can be harvested and used in cooking. Create your petite path by designating some prime “farmland” by sun

Farm-to-School
Farm-to -School is a growing national effort to connect school lunch programs directly to local farmers. According to the National Farm to School Program, there are almost 9,000 schools across the

School Gardens
School gardens are an amazing multidisciplinary, hands-on learning opportunity. In addition, they provide an unparalleled experience to empower children to grow their own food. You’ll see the pride

Visit a Local Farm
Most school already schedule a farm field trip at some point during the primary years. If it’s possible, find a local organic farm to visit so the staff can explain what they do to protect the envi

Grocery Store Scavenger Hunt
Call a local grocery store and find out at what times during the day or what day of the week they usually have very little business. Warn them that you’ll bringing in your class. Break up the class

Food Label Forensics
Have students bring clean food labels from home. Each student will only use one label, but they should all bring several to ensure that everyone will get to work with a label from a different produ

Invisible Invaders
To get an idea of how a chemical pesticide or fertilizer ends up in your food, fill a container with water and add a few drops of food coloring. Place a stalk of celery in the water. When plants ar

The Dirty Dozen
Conventionally grown food can have chemical pesticide residues. Pesticides have been linked to a variety of health impacts. And kids are most vulnerable. You can easily reduce a child’s exposure to

Organic Gardening at Home
Growing your own food is rewarding and it saves money, too! Encourage parents to embrace Earth-friendly farming at home. Whether it’s a garden in the yard or simply a few plants in pots on a window

Radical Reductions
People in the United States spend more time and money shopping than anywhere else in the world. All these purchases certainly don’t make the planet a happier place. Every single thing you buy has a

What a Waste
How much garbage do you create every day? How often do you buy new things? If you look at the facts about how much people buy and throw away, it’s pretty shocking. If everyone lived

Trash Examination
What is waste? It’s everything we throw away and then some. Most of what ends up in landfills is paper. There’s also food, plastic, metal, glass, textiles, wood, and much more. Challenge students t

Out of Sight, Out of Mind?
Many people forget about garbage as soon as it’s taken away, but it doesn’t simply disappear. A lot of garbage doesn’t even make it to the dump. Instead, it blows around in the wind, get stuck up i

Fun with Furoshiki
You don’t have to worry about what to do with garbage if you don’t make any. Generations of people in Japan have used a fabric-folding technique known as furoshiki (f’-ROHSH-kee) to wrap gifts any

Paper Purge
Find as many ways to reduce paper use as you can. For example, designate a spot in the classroom for pieces of paper that have only been used on the side. Reuse these pieces for scratch paper. For

Take a Load Off at Lunch
Students will see immediate differences in waste levels after starting a paper purge, and they can also see drastic changes if they begin planning waste-free lunches. Split the classroom into two s

Paperless Office
If your students are trying to reduce paper use in your classroom, it’s time they taught the administrative staff a little lesson about going paper-less. Of course, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be a

E – FACT
The average office worker uses 10,000 pieces of paper year. You can cut that amount in half simply by always copying or printing on both sides of the paper. Set your copies and printers to default

Dumpster Diving
Having older children do a waste adult allows them to understand exactly what goes into their school’s garbage, and it also gets them to use a variety of mathematical concepts. You can find directi

Unlovely Landfill
Many solid waste facilities offer tours for schools. Call your local facility or local government office of solid waste to find out if there are any tours in your area. Generally, the tour consists

Government Garbage Control
You can call your city, country, or state government offices to talk to someone about solid waste and pollution control. Take the children to the selected government office to see where region’s wa

Wastewater
Landfills are built like big swimming pool. They have special thick walls that are supposed to keep the garbage from leaking into groundwater. Still, oftentimes, over time the walls start cracking

Don’t Make It, Don’t Breathe It
Reducing the amount of “stuff” people use will reduce all kinds of pollution, including air pollution. When China wanted to clean up the air for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, it shut down fa

Shop-until-You-Drop-Waste
Everything people buy creates pollution. You don’t need to stop shopping, but everyone can shop smarter. Here are some ideas to reduce how much waste you create. They’ll also help you reduce the am

Junk Mail Madness
No one likes junk mail, so why not get rid of it? It’s irritating to consumers and it’s incredibly wasteful, so put your foot down. Write the Direct Marketing Association and register with

In the Beginning, Think of the End
When you are out shopping and trying to decide which products to buy, look at them closely to see if they might be reusable. If it can’t be reused, is there a similar product that would suit your n

Re-imagine, Reinvent, Rediscover
Reusing requires a little creativity. By nature, kids are some of the most creative creatures on the planet so get those innovative juices flowing and watch what happens. Either provides some of yo

Second Homes for Second Stuff
Just because you don’t want to reuse something doesn’t mean somebody else wouldn’t want to. Some people have yard sales to get rid of things they don’t want anymore. Ask your students to tell you a

Toys from Trash
A group of artists in South Africa collect aluminum cans, bottle caps, plastic bottles, bits of wire, and other refuse to create functional toys like cars and radios as well as souvenirs like decor

Idea Sharing
How Can I Recycle This? (www.recyclethis.org.uk) is a British blog that has readers submit reuse questions for everyone to respond to. People can send in a request for ideas for reusing old gloves,

Create-a-Card
Everyone has lovely holiday and birthday cards they hate to throw away. At the beginning of the year, send out an alert for parents to save their old holiday and birthday cards. Create postcards by

Notebooks out of Cereal Boxes
Have your students bring in empty cereal boxes from home. Collect paper that has only been used on one side from classrooms and staff offices. Pile the paper so that all the sheets are facing the s

Swap It
Children are natural swappers. Ride a school bus or visit a playground and you’ll see them trading candy for bouncy balls or other small treasures. Ask your students if they’ve ever done this and h

Reclamation Station
Find a spot in your school that is easily accessible and visible to everyone. Use medium-sizes garbage cans, recycling containers, or large boxes to set up a reclamation station. Make labels for ea

Behind the Secondhand Scenes
Arrange to take your students to a local thrift store for a behind-the-scenes look at how it a works. Where do the items come from? How does the staff prepare them to be sold? How do they price the

School Scrap Sculptures
Take your students to the local scrap or junkyard where old automobiles go to the priced apart by consumers looking for odd parts. In preparation, you can check out Crashed, Smashed, and Mashed: A

Reusing Reduces Pollution
Every time reuse something instead of buying something new, you eliminate all of the pollution created when something new is made and shipped to you. Reducing pollution means cleaner air to breathe

Don’t Abuse Reuse
Some things are not meant to be reused and can actually endanger people’s health if they reuse them. In most cases, these items are plastics that are used for food and beverages. Plastics are gener

Reuse Challenge
Make a math homework assignment by creating a graph with students’ names on one side and reuse options on the other. Create coupons that say “Our family has completed ___________ to fulfill one Reu