Rebecca Hoesli

Sarah VandenBerg

Katie Westra

Laura Walton

Science Instructional Unit

  1. Introduction and Overview

The topic for this unit is recycling. It has been designed for a first grade classroom of 16 to 18 students. This unit has eight lessons beginning with the concept of where products come from and ending with a practical application of knowledge and helping the earth. The lessons in between consider the topics of where trash goes, reducing, reusing, recycling and littering. This unit should be carried out over a period of three weeks in half hour to forty-five minute increments.

  1. Rationale and Purpose:

Our students will understand the effects of human actions on the earth. They will develop an awareness of how materials are taken from the earth and how they are disposed of thereafter. The students will also learn applicable ways to help sustain the earth through their actions. This relates to the real world concerns of running out of space for landfills and increased consumption in our country. It will fit the needs of our students by creating an awareness in them of environmental concerns and establishing steps they can take to improve the earth’s condition. This unit reflects our philosophy of teaching in that this topic concerns the issue of stewardship which is fundamental to all humans. This unit also uses hands-on exploration approaches that allow students to learn using the 5E instructional model which we believe is important for studies in science.

  1. Identification of Goals/Objectives:

Broad Goals: Our main goal is for students to learn the general process of recycling and applicable ways to reduce, reuse and recycle.

  1. Students need to understand the problem that humans create a lot of waste, fill up land space and use up natural resources.
  2. Students will understand the solution to the problems as the concepts of reducing, reusing and recycling.
  3. Students will think of practical and applicable ways to help the earth through reducing, reusing and recycling.

~MCF Benchmarks:

  • SCI.V.1.E.6 Demonstrate ways to conserve natural resources and reduce pollution through reduction, reuse, and recycling of manufactured materials.

SCI.III.5.E.4Describe positive and negative effects of humans on the environment.

SCI.I.1.E.1 Generate reasonable questions about the world based on observation.

SCI.I.1.E.2 Develop solutions to problems through reasoning, observation, and investigation.

SCI.II.1.E.1 Develop an awareness of the need for evidence in making decisions scientifically.

SCI.II.1.E.2 Show how science concepts can be illustrated through creative expression such as language arts and fine arts.

SCI.II.1.E.4 Develop an awareness of and sensitivity to the natural world.

~Specific Goals:

Cognitive:

TLW recognize the characteristics of plastics, metals, paper and Styrofoam.

TLW identify from where plastics, metals, paper and Styrofoam come.

  • Psychomotor: TLW perform Products Cheers.
  • TLW identify where trash goes after it is thrown away.
  • Psychomotor: TLW perform a role play that reenacts the path that trash travels.
  • TLW recognize that landfills are being filled and using our natural resource of land space.
  • Affective: TLW realize the consequences of their actions and how it affects their own lives and the lives of others.
  • TLW recognize the problems that littering causes to the earth.
  • TLW develop solutions to littering problems.
  • TLW be able to demonstrate their knowledge of recycling and what can be recycled.
  • Psychomotor: TLW perform the trash sort.
  • TLW recognize the amount of trash they produce each day.
  • TLW generate applicable ways they can reduce to help our earth.
  • TLW understand what reusing is and why it is important.
  • TLW use their imagination to come up with an idea for a musical instrument that they can make by reusing the clean trash provided.
  • TLW be able to identify at least three ways that they can help to reduce the amount of waste and garbage that is produced.
  • TLW generate applicable ways to help our earth by reducing, reusing, or recycling.
  • Affective: TLW understand how this directly affects their daily lives.
  1. Unit Map/Plan

Sequence of Lessons

  1. Lesson 1-Where does it come from?
  2. TLW recognize the characteristics of plastics, metals, paper and Styrofoam.
  3. TLW identify from where plastics, metals, paper and Styrofoam come.
  4. Lesson 2-Where does it go?
  5. TLW identify where trash goes after it is thrown away.
  6. TLW recognize that landfills are being filled and using our natural resource of land space.
  7. Lesson 3-What about littering?
  8. TLW recognize the problems that littering causes to the earth.
  9. TLW develop solutions to littering problems.
  10. Lesson 4-Why recycle?
  11. TLW be able to demonstrate their knowledge of recycling and what can be recycled by completing a garbage sort activity.
  12. Lesson 5-How do we reprocess?
  13. TLW understand that old materials are broken down to make brand new materials when recycled by creating recycled paper.
  14. Lesson 6-How do we reduce?
  15. TLW recognize the amount of trash they produce each day.
  16. TLW generate applicable ways they can reduce to help our earth.
  17. Lesson 7-How do we reuse?
  18. TLW understand what reusing is and why it is important.
  19. TLW use their imagination to come up with an idea for a musical instrument that they can make by reusing the clean trash provided.
  20. Lesson 8-What can I do?
  21. TLW be able to identify at least three ways that they can help to reduce the amount of waste and garbage that is produced.
  22. Lesson 9-How can I help the earth?
  23. TLW generate applicable ways to help our earth by reducing, reusing, or recycling.

Throughout this unit, we would like to the students to understand that people produce large amounts of waste and fill up land space with landfills as well as limit the use of natural resources. We also want the students to understand that they can help solve this problem by reducing, reusing, and recycling. Our final goal for this unit is for the students to be able to apply their knowledge of reducing, reusing, and recycling to think of ways they can help our Earth.

The sequencing of our lessons is important because each lesson will build off the previous lesson. It is important that students understand where different materials come from in order to know that natural resources are limited. The students then need to understand that our world produces an excessive amount of trash and we are running out of places to store the trash. We then introduce the three “R’s” to the students; reduce, reuse, and recycle. These lessons help students understand how we can solve the problem of limited natural resources and excessive amounts of garbage. After learning about these solutions, the students will understand how they can apply them to their daily lives.

  1. Instructional strategies and materials

Lesson One~Where does it come from?

Subject/Topic: Plastic, Paper, Metal and Styrofoam Origins

Rationale/Purpose: To help students learn where raw materials and every day products come from.

Objectives:

  • TLW recognize the characteristics of plastics, metals, paper and Styrofoam.
  • TLW identify from where plastics, metals, paper and Styrofoam come.

Content:

  1. Properties of products
  2. Metals
  3. Shiny
  4. Hard
  5. Cold
  6. Plastic
  7. Soft
  8. Smooth
  9. Styrofoam
  10. Smooth
  11. Squishy
  12. Paper
  13. Thin
  14. Smooth
  15. Origins of products
  16. Metals
  17. Earth’s crust-in minerals (ores) in the rocks
  18. Mined (dug out)
  19. Copper, zinc, lead, nickel
  20. Plastic
  21. Made from chemicals and has long molecules (tons of atoms-small particles)
  22. Shaped when warm or liquid using molds
  23. Styrofoam
  24. Made from gases and chemicals
  25. Paper
  26. Logs chipped and missed with chemicals to make pulp
  27. Pulp goes into paper-making machine and excess water drains
  28. Damp paper pressed, dried and rolled to smooth the surface

Materials:

4 examples of plastic, metal, Styrofoam, and paper

Materials book of the Young Oxford Library of Science, Vol. 5

Strategies and Activities:

Engage- The teacher will begin with a display of the products on a desk. She will ask the students to tell her some things they notice about the products. Then she will pass out materials to each group. All the plastic, paper, Styrofoam and metal products will be on the same table.

Explore-The teacher will allow the students to examine the plastic, metal, Styrofoam and paper at their respective tables. After they have had time to examine them, she will have the students from each table come up to the front of the room and describe the similarities and differences of those things on their table and ask them what they would call those things or what they are made of. She will write their responses on the board.

Explain- The teacher will then look at their descriptions, say them and give the name for each material as plastic, metal, Styrofoam or paper. She will have each group hold up their products as she describes them and raise them up as the whole class says their name. Then each group will come up with an action for their product.

Elaborate- The teacher will have the students look at their objects more closely. She will ask them to think about where their material comes from. She will ask volunteers to give their answers. Then she will have the students move to the reading area, leaving their materials on their tables. She will read selected sections from the book and point out pictures that show from where plastic, metal, Styrofoam and paper come. She will have the students stand up and do cheers after each reading. The cheers are: “Metals come from underground!” “Papers come from trees!” “Plastics come from chemicals!” “Styrofoam comes from chemicals!”

Evaluate- After the class has finished all of their cheers, the teacher will start a cheer and have the class finish it altogether. Then she will divide them up in their materials group and have each one stand up when she says that name in the cheer and have them finish the cheer of where it comes from. Then she will have each group finish the cheers for each of the products. Lastly, she will say where they come from and have the class say the product name. Then the class will say all the cheers together.

Plans for Individual Differences:

In order to meet each of the learning styles, students will act out the cheers and say them. They also handle the materials in their groups and describethem. The students see each product and pictures from the book about how they are made.

Lesson Critique:

This lesson worked very well because it allowed the students to describe each of the materials and realize the characteristics of them. After that, they were able to find out where each one came from. The words in the book are a little difficult for the students and are better to be summed up. The students seemed to have enjoyed the cheers and remembered them a week later.

Lesson Two~Where does the Garbage go?

I. Subject/Topic: When we throw trash away, it goes to landfills.

II. Rational/Purpose: The student will gain knowledge about where trash goes when it is thrown away. Students need to understand that trash does not just disappear; it goes to a landfill, usually by a garbage truck, and fills up land space. This is a beginning lesson on the topic of recycling. This fits with the MCF.SCI.V.1.E.6 Benchmark: Demonstrate ways to conserve natural resources and reduce pollution through reduction, reuse, and recycling of manufactured

materials.

III. Objectives:

TLW identify where trash goes when it is thrown away.

TLW realize landfills are being filled and using the natural resource of land space.

IV. Content:

  1. Engage:
  2. The teacher will place a large pile of “garbage” on each of the tables the students are sitting at. I have a friend who has a problem…Look at all this stuff!...The students will be encouraged to look through and sort through these items. There will also be garbage in one corner of the room with a poster labeled “landfill.” The students will be given a minute or two to look at and touch the different kinds of trash.
  3. What is all this stuff?...What is garbage?...Why do you think it is here?....Pretend you were at home, what would you do with all the things you don’t want (give students a chance to answer and talk about throwing it away or taking out the trash)…Let me read you a story about a little girl who never took the trash out.
  4. Read Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout by Shel Silverstein. So, what happened to Sarah in this story?...What should she have done?....Well, we have a special visitor today…Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout is here to see us. Hello Sarah, would you like to the boys and girls? “Hello boys and girls, I’m Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout…wait a minute…that’s the same name as you!” Yes, it is. “Is your second name Cynthia?” No, it isn’t. “Oh, what is your second name?” Sarah, all these boys and girls are here to see you. Don’t you just love my collection of trash? Isn’t it beautiful?”…encourage students to talk to Sarah….”I’m going to keep it forever and ever.” But Sarah, it will fill up your whole house. “I know, but there’s nothing I can do…it’s just too much!, Besides, Where would it go?” Where does trash go? “I don’t know…hmmm…Wait a minute. Maybe you can help me…can you (boys and girls) help me take the trash out?” wait for response. Alright well, Sarah, you come sit over here….we are going to take the garbage out!
  5. Explore
  6. The students will be instructed to grab two or three pieces of trash. And bring it out to the “trash can.” Each student will get up and bring a couple pieces with them.
  7. We will “follow the leader” through the “town” to the story corner or “dumpster.” So, We bring it to the dumpster or the curb. Where does it go after that? …It gets picked up by the GARBAGE TRUCK! (Pull out the book and read the story I Stink.)
  8. After reading the story (to Trash-o-Rama page), ask the students, Where does the garbage truck bring the trash after it leaves town? (Let the student brainstorm options of where it goes) Looks like they have a problem like Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout. Let’s follow the road to see where all the trash ends up. (There will be a “road made of blue tape” that the children can follow to the landfill.)
  9. Explain
  10. When we get to the landfill the children will throw their trash in the pile. What is all that garbage there for? Why do we put it there? What is a landfill?
  11. A landfill is where all our trash goes when the garbage truck takes it away. There are miles and miles of land covered with all of our old trash. Then bulldozers push dirt over the trash to cover it. Does anyone have any questions about landfills?...
  12. What do you think would happen if we kept adding more and more trash to the landfills?....Do you think they could ever get filled up? Where would it go then? That could be a big problem if we had nowhere to put our trash.
  13. Show the students pictures of landfills. From books. Let’s go back and tell Sarah what she can do with her trash!!! (Have students return to their seats at the table.)
  14. Application
  15. Get out Sarah. Sarah we are back. “Oh good, did you take care of my trash? Where did you go? What happens to trash when it leaves my house?” Can you tell Sarah about where we went? (Ask the students questions about where it went after it left the house, the truck it went on, where the garbage truck took it, etc. – Possibly a thumbs up thumbs down system if the same children answer all the time)
  16. Excellent, I’m glad you learned so much about landfills and where our trash goes and why its important not to have trash in our house. I’m excited for you all to come back and find out what else we can do with our trash so we don’t fill our landfills.

V. Materials:

Book: I Stink by Kate and Jim McMullan (2002)

Lots and lots of clean trash! Various kinds

Carpet squares

Puppet friend

“Sarah Synthia Cylvia Stout” by Shel Silverstein

VI.Strategies and Activities:

The teacher will begin by presenting a problem. And then, will introduce the “friend” who has the problem to the students to make it more down to earth and real for the students. After talking with the friend, ,the students will be asked to find out how to take care of the garbage and where it can go. They will be read a story in which they get to be the garbage truck and “smash and mash” their trash, finally ending at the landfill to throw it away. The students will be brought back to the friend to share with her what they learned about where the trash went. They will also be shown pictures of real landfills to give them an idea of what it really looks like. Through all this, the teacher hopes to instill the process of throwing things away in the students.