The Science of Puddles
(View Complete Item Description)This activity is a field investigation of puddles where students gather data and record their findings.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
All resources in Green & Healthy Schools
Explore Perspectives of A Green & Healthy School
(View Complete Item Description)What does a green AND healthy school look like? Take a good look at your school from these nine different perspectives. Where is your school excelling? Where could your school use some improvements? These pages are written for a student audience with opportunities for them to connect, explore, and engage with the nine focus areas in Green & Healthy Schools Wisconsin: Body & Mind, Community Engagement, Energy, Environmental Literacy, Healthy Buildings, School Grounds, Transportation, Waste, and Water.
Material Type: Learning Task, Reading, Student Guide
Does Media Matter? Infiltration Rates and Storage Capacities
(View Complete Item Description)Students gain a basic understanding of the properties of media soil, sand, compost, gravel and how these materials affect the movement of water (infiltration/percolation) into and below the surface of the ground. They learn about permeability, porosity, particle size, surface area, capillary action, storage capacity and field capacity, and how the characteristics of the materials that compose the media layer ultimately affect the recharging of groundwater tables. They test each type of material, determining storage capacity, field capacity and infiltration rates, seeing the effect of media size on infiltration rate and storage. Then teams apply the testing results to the design their own material mixes that best meet the design requirements. To conclude, they talk about how engineers apply what students learned in the activity about the infiltration rates of different soil materials to the design of stormwater management systems.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
5th Grade Rain Garden Design Challenge Lesson Plan
(View Complete Item Description)This lesson engages 5th grade students in identifying areas of erosion and non-point source pollution entering waterways on school property, making a claim on the most suitable site to locate a rain garden by conducting field tests on slope and soil type, and testing for the presence of phosphates in waterways on school forest property. Students then compete in a rain garden design challenge using their data to create a poster presentation, including a map and claim evidence reasoning, for the best rain garden design plan, scored using a rubric.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Formative Assessment, Interim/Summative Assessment, Lesson Plan, Rubric/Scoring Guide, Unit of Study
12 Steps to a Sustainable High School
(View Complete Item Description)This activity includes an assessment, analysis, and action tool that can be used by classrooms to promote understanding of how the complex current issues of energy, pollution, supply and consumption are not just global but also local issues.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Composting Competition
(View Complete Item Description)In a multi-week experiment, students monitor the core temperatures of two compost piles, one control and one tended, to see how air and water affect microbial activity. They daily aerate and wet the "treated" pile and collect 4-6 weeks' worth of daily temperature readings. Once the experiment is concluded, students plot and analyze their data to compare the behavior of the two piles. They find that the treated pile becomes hotter, an indication that more microbes are active and releasing heat. Through this activity, students see that microbes play a role in composting and how composting can be used as a carbon management process.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Composting â Nature's Disappearing Act
(View Complete Item Description)Students explore the concept of biodegradability by building and observing model landfills to test the decomposition of samples of everyday garbage items. They collect and record experiment observations over five days, seeing for themselves what happens to trash when it is thrown "away" in a landfill environment. This shows them the difference between biodegradable and non-biodegradable and serves to introduce them to the idea of composting. Students also learn about the role of engineering in solid waste management.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
3RC (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Compost)
(View Complete Item Description)In this lesson, students expand their understanding of solid waste management to include the idea of 3RC (reduce, reuse, recycle and compost). They will look at the effects of packaging decisions (reducing) and learn about engineering advancements in packaging materials and solid waste management. Also, they will observe biodegradation in a model landfill (composting).
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Biorecycling: Using Nature to Make Resources from Waste
(View Complete Item Description)By studying key processes in the carbon cycle, such as photosynthesis, composting and anaerobic digestion, students learn how nature and engineers "biorecycle" carbon. Students are exposed to examples of how microbes play many roles in various systems to recycle organic materials and also learn how the carbon cycle can be used to make or release energy.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
What Will Biodegrade?
(View Complete Item Description)Students investigate what types of materials biodegrade in the soil, and learn what happens to their trash after they throw it away. The concepts of landfills and compost piles will be explained, and the students will have an opportunity to create their own miniature landfill in which the difference between organic and inorganic waste will become clear.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Soil Biosolarization: Using Food Waste and the Sun to Get Rid of Weeds in Soil
(View Complete Item Description)Over the course of three sessions, students act as agricultural engineers and learn about the sustainable pest control technique known as soil biosolarization in which organic waste is used to help eliminate pests during soil solarization instead of using toxic compounds like pesticides and fumigants. Student teams prepare seed starter pots using a source of microorganisms (soil or compost) and “organic waste” (such as oatmeal, a source of carbon for the microorganisms). They plant seeds (representing weed seeds) in the pots, add water and cover them with plastic wrap. At experiment end, students count the weed seedlings and assess the efficacy of the soil biosolarization technique in inactivating the weed seeds. An experiment-guiding handout and pre/post quizzes are provided.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Dome It Challenge Scenario Cards
(View Complete Item Description)Student teams find solutions to hypothetical challenge scenarios that require them to sustainably manage both resources and wastes. They begin by creating a card representing themselves and the resources (inputs) they need and wastes (outputs) they produce. Then they incorporate additional cards for food and energy components and associated necessary resources and waste products. They draw connections between outputs that provide inputs for other needs, and explore the problem of using linear solutions in resource-limited environments. Then students incorporate cards based on biorecycling technologies, such as algae photobioreactors and anaerobic digesters in order to make circular connections. Finally, the student teams present their complete biorecycling engineering solutions to their scenarios in poster format by connecting outputs to inputs, and showing the cycles of how wastes become resources.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Solid Waste Takes Over
(View Complete Item Description)In this lesson, students explore solid waste and its effects on the environment. They will collect classroom trash for analysis and build model landfills in order to understand the process and impact of solid waste management. Students will understand the role of engineers in solid waste management.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Bury Your Trash!
(View Complete Item Description)Students bury various pieces of trash in a plotted area of land outside. After two to three months, they uncover the trash to investigate what types of materials biodegrade in soil.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Milly Zantow: Recycling Revolutionary | Wisconsin Biographies
(View Complete Item Description)When this problem-solver learned that a landfill in her Sauk County community was closing much earlier than it should, she got to work. Her activism and effort ended up making big changes in the world of plastics recycling. Resources available for exploring this story include: - A short animated video with captions and transcripts in English and Spanish - A short biography book accessible as a slide deck, with per-page audio for listening along, and maps of key locations in the story - Questions that can be used for conversation, reflection, and connection with the story - A historical image gallery full of primary and secondary sources to explore - A guide for activating the media with learners that includes story stats, extension activity ideas, and standards supported This story is part of Wisconsin Biographies, a collection of educational media resources for grades 3-6. Explore the full collection at pbswisconsineducation.org/biographies/about.
Material Type: Other