How To...Recycle - From Trash to Treasure

For Reproducible click here. PDF 1454KB

Science is about change. Start your students down the reduce, reuse, recycle path and see what changes occur in your school – and community.

All about recycling
Studying recycling helps students see the relationship between natural re-sources and their environment, and learn about conservation.

Recycle City
www.epa.gov/recyclecity
Investigate recycling in this city simulation with activities to explore Recycle City and an engaging Dumptown Game.

Planet Protectors Club
www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/kids
These activities, in English and Spanish, are for all ages. Click on the age groups to find games and activities for recycling.

Precious Paper
www.recycledpapercraft.com/prespap.htm
This resource is rich with paper statistics. For just one day, record the amount of paper used in your school. Ask the office to keep track. Collect the copy numbers from every copy machine. Gather paper in the lunch room and from recycle bins and weigh it. Count the paper you use in your classroom – don't forget workbook pages! See how your paper use compares to daily paper use across the United States.

• Put your collected data in a spreadsheet to share with your school principal and administration, the PTA and school community.
• Use the data to write word problems about the use of paper in our world.
• Make a list of ways to reduce, reuse and recycle the paper in your school. Share your list in a school-wide assembly.
• Invite someone from the local waste management agency to discuss ways to recycle in your community.
• A ton of paper prints about 7,000 newspapers. How many local newspapers are delivered each day? How many tons of paper in a year?
• Set aside a "Paper Moratorium" day in your classroom.

Trash to treasure

1. Want to get creative about ways to reuse and recycle? www.recycledpapercraft.com is a great starting point for a zoo menagerie built of trash. What can you do with a jelly jar? Download this 12-page guide and poster to find out. www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/kids/pdfs/jellyjar.pdf


Recycled Masks by Russell Cave Elementary students, Lexington, KY.

2. Use a digital camera to tour your school looking for recycled paper products. You might find musical instruments from paper rolls, Native American masks or a scale model of a city made out of lunch room cartons.
3. For Valentine's Day, probably the number-one card-giving day of the year, recycle grocery bags or small shopping bags (even shoe boxes or small empty cereal boxes) and decorate them for your Valentine mailbox. Ask students and parents for Valentines from previous years to cut up for decorations. Previously used giftwrap and ribbon also work well. If you have a scrap paper bin in the school, Ellison or AccuCut dies can be used to turn paper "trash" into colorful hearts and other shapes for special Valentines. I always use a collection of hole punches in a variety of shapes to add interest to our mailboxes and cards.

More recycling resources
Here are even more websites to spark your science curriculum from now until Earth Day on April 22.

EPA Environmental Kids Club
www.epa.gov/kids

Clean Sweep USA
www.kab.org/kids/defaultx.htm
Reuse stores and exchange centers.

42eXplore: Reduce, reuse, recycle
www.42explore.com/recycle.htm
Extensive database of recycling links.

For Reproducible click here. PDF 1454KB

Linda K. Lindroth is Technology Editor and Web Coordinator for Teaching K-8. She is also a Technology Resource Teacher in a K-5 computer lab in Lexington, KY.

February 2006, Vol.36, No.5