Lesson 1: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Day 1:

Build background knowledge with a guest speaker from a local recycling facility. (Topic:  "How can a kindergarten student lessen human impact on the local environment by recycling at home?")

Give students time to interact with the speaker and ask questions that the students developed prior to the lesson.

Students will draw a picture of how they can recycle at home. Students will dictate to the teacher (or write) a sentence about how they can recycle at home.

Day 2:

 Before the lesson:

Explicitly introduce the following vocabulary

1.  Reduce (show vocabulary card from printed materials)

Define: To reduce is to use less, which results in less waste.

Example: We can reduce by doing simple things such as turning off the lights when we leave a room or turning off the water when we brush our teeth.

Ask: What is a way you can reduce at school? (Students can partner talk or raise their hands with examples.)

2. Reuse (show vocabulary card from printed materials)

Define: To reuse is to use an item again instead of throwing it away.

Example: You can reuse the zip plastic bags from your lunchbox over and over again.

Ask: What is another way you can reuse something at home? (Students can partner talk or raise their hands with examples.)

3. Recycle (show vocabulary card from printed materials)

Define: Recycling is turning materials into a new item. Recycling prevents resources from being wasted. 

Example: You can recycle paper. The paper you recycle could be turned into new stationery.

Ask: What are some things we could recycle at school? (Students can partner talk or raise hands with examples.)

4. Environment (show vocabulary card from printed materials)

Define: The environment is the air, water, and land in or on which people, animals, and plants live.

Example: Most monkeys live in a jungle. This environment has many trees and is usually very hot and humid.

Ask: Describe the environment where fish live. (Students can partner talk or raise hands with examples.)

5. Impact (show vocabulary card from printed materials)

Define: If you impact something, you have an effect on it.

Example: If you litter, you impact the earth in a negative way. Litter makes the earth dirty. It can kill animals and plants. 

Ask: What is a positive way you can impact the earth? (Students can partner talk or raise hands with examples.)

Read learning targets together.

I can:

-identify possible solutions to lessen human impact on the local environment

-plan possible solutions to lessen the human impact on the local environment

-identify potential human impacts on the local environment

During the lesson:

Read: The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Divide students into groups and use the "Think-Pair-Share" Method.  

The teacher will divide the students into partners and listen to discussions.

The students will sit criss-cross, look eye-to-eye with their partner, one friend will talk, and the other friend will listen.

Ask: 

1. What are some ways the Once-ler impacted the environment? Was this good for the environment or bad for the environment?

2. What do humans do that destroys the Earth's environment? (pollution, fires, vehicle fumes, littering, wasting electricity)

3. What are ways we can save our environment? (reduce, reuse, recycle, save water and electricity, ride a bike, walk, etc.)

Reread the statement from The Lorax, "Unless someone like you...cares a whole awful lot... nothing is going to get better...It's not."

Discussion of the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle)

Make a reduce, reuse, recycle chart to list ways your students can positively impact the environment by doing the 3Rs. (The directions are listed under "Background and Preparation.")

Reducing is to use less, which results in less waste. We can do this by doing simple things such as turning off the lights when we leave a room or turning off the water when we brush our teeth. List students' ideas on the chart.

Recycling is turning materials into a new item. Recycling prevents resources from being wasted. A wide range of things can be recycled including glass, paper, aluminum, and plastics. Items that can be recycled must be sorted and separated into material types.

There are two common household methods of helping increase recycling. The first is curbside collection where consumers leave presorted materials for recycling at the front of their property, typically in boxes or sacks to be collected by a recycling vehicle. (Find out if your community recycles.) The second method is where a householder takes the materials to be recycled to a recycling or collection facility. Discuss this information with your students.

Encourage students to bring in recyclable materials to be sorted. (These materials will be used in a later math lesson and recycled.)

Lead your students in a discussion on how recycling can positively impact the local environment. List their ideas on the chart.

Reuse: to use an item again instead of throwing it away. For example, plastic zip bags, broken crayons made into newly shaped crayons, the back side of a piece of paper, etc.

List students' ideas under reuse on the chart.

Read chart with students.

After the lesson:

Give students Post-it Notes to draw one of the strategies (reduce, reuse, recycle) as an exit slip. Students will place their exit slip on the class chart in the correct column.

After reviewing the exit slips, reteach areas as needed.

Play Kahoot! reduce, reuse, recycle online. https://create.kahoot.it/create#/edit/7b3787c5-5189-4259-9288-5fdba2d3c37e/done