This seven-page resource is a ready-to-use project guide that will get students thinking about their communities and creating initiatives to clean them up.
Using an inquiry model, students will have opportunities to think, plan, question, communicate, and advocate for litter reduction in their neighborhoods.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This project guide provides everything students will need to roll out a project in which students explore the habitat(s) of their local community, think critically about what kind of project would benefit their space, take action, and inspire others.
The resource is rich with compelling stories, links to enriching information, and attention grabbing graphics.
Additional Prerequisites
A list of domain specific vocabulary is included and would be helpful for younger students.
The link to the checklist on page 4 is broken.
Differentiation
This resource could be used in a science unit on habitats or conservation.
Language arts classes could practice persuasive writing when contacting their elected representatives.
This activity is best suited as a whole class project or a project for a club, as there are so many components. Consider having students form committees that spearhead different parts of the project.
As an extension, students could create a podcast or commercial about their community project and how it impacted their community.
Scientist Notes
This resource contains stories, pictures, and practical examples of how students can take action to address biodiversity loss, pollution, and other environmental issues in their community. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.12.6-8 Explain how global changes in population distribution patterns affect changes in land use in particular places.
D2.Geo.1.3-5 Construct maps and other graphic representations of both familiar and unfamiliar places.
Dimension 3: Developing Claims and Using Evidence
D3.4.3-5 Use evidence to develop claims in response to compelling questions.
Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
D4.7.6-8 Assess their individual and collective capacities to take action to address local, regional, and global problems, taking into account a range of possible levers of power, strategies, and potential outcomes.
D4.6.3-5 Draw on disciplinary concepts to explain the challenges people have faced and opportunities they have created, in addressing local, regional, and global problems at various times and places.
D4.8.9-12 Apply a range of deliberative and democratic strategies and procedures to make decisions and take action in their classrooms, schools, and out-of-school civic contexts.
