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Welcome to the Sustainability Lesson Clearinghouse

Here, you can find free sustainability lessons to use in your class and upload your own lessons to share. Be sure to rate the lessons you use and leave comments for your colleagues!

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Sustainability Lesson Clearinghouse

What Happens to Litter?

Lesson Description:
  • Describe litter, and explain where it comes from, what happens to it and why that matters.
  • Collect, record, organize, and interpret data using a variety of graphic representations.
  • Describe a year in terms of months.
  • Make observations and draw conclusions.

Lesson Type:
  • Discussion
  • Lecture
  • Other

Sustainability Topic:
  • Waste Reduction

GEF Program Category:
  • Waste Reduction Challenge

Standards Addressed:
Technology Standard 3: Understand the relationship among science, technology, society and the individual.
  • Benchmark # 3: Know that man-made materials, products, and systems can affect the environment adversely, yet there are things that can be done to circumvent this process (e.g., disposing of waste properly).

Science Standard 10: Understand force and motion.
  • Benchmark # 3: Know that the position of an object can be described by locating it relative to another object or the background.
  • Benchmark # 5: Know things move in many different ways (e.g., straight line, circular motion).

Science Standard 12: Understand the nature of scientific inquiry.
  • Benchmark # 1: Know learning can come from careful observation and simple experiments.

Health Standard 2: Know environmental and external factors that affect individual and community health. 
  • Benchmark # 1: Know the sources and causes of pollution in the community.
  • Mathematics Standard 2: Understand and apply basic and advanced properties of the concepts of numbers.
  • Benchmark # 3: Understand symbolic, concrete, and pictorial representations of numbers.
  • Benchmark # 4: Understand basic whole number relationships (e.g., 4 is less than ten).

Mathematics Standard 4: Understand and apply the basic and advanced properties of the concepts of measurement.
  • Benchmark # 2: Understand the concept of time and how it is measured (e.g., months in a year).

Mathematics Standard 6: Understand and apply the basic and advanced concepts of statistics and data analysis.
  • Benchmark # 1: Collect and represent information about objects or events in simple graphs (e.g., tally charts, bar graphs).

Language Arts Standard 6: Use reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of literary text.
  • Benchmark # 1: Use reading skills and strategies to understand a variety of familiar literary passages and texts (e.g., picture books, predictable books,…).
  • Benchmark # 5: Relate stories to personal experiences.a

Materials Needed:
  • Copy of “Where Does Pollution Come From?” by C. Vance Cast
  • Poster markers or colored chalk
  • Grade appropriate grid paper
  • Pencils
  • Rulers
  • Chart paper
  • "Rotting Litter" data table provided below

School or Group:
Green Education Foundation (GEF)
Contact Email:
service@greeneducationfoundation.org
Located in: Science | Health | Math | Language Arts

The Sustainability Lesson Clearinghouse is brought to you in partnership with

Center for Green Schools