The Earth Rotating Makes My Day

Challenge
Earth Day is celebrated every year on April 22nd. It was first celebrated in 1970. It is a day used to promote and support environmental protection for our Earth. We don't need a special day to celebrate. We can celebrate this day year round! We have to think of our future and generations to come.  Taking care of the Earth is best for every organism in the future.  What are some things you do to protect our Earth?  What are some things others can do to help the Earth? This leads right into the challenge for the month.  How can you reuse materials to reduce your impact on the environment?

For this challenge, there are not any criteria or constraints! Use your imagination to think of different ways to use something, especially plastic items since they take a very long time to decompose.  Search the web.  Learn how others or reusing items to make art, clothing, fashion accessories, bags/wallets, jewelry, etc.   

*This idea and challenge can be further explored in the Advancing STEM Kindergarten Unit, Spot the Differences: Changes to the Environment

Materials

• various reusable items
• tape
• glue
• rubber bands

Hints and Tips for Success

1. Allow students planning, research, and discussion time to decide what they would like to reuse, how they would like to reuse it, and what they are going to create.
2. After the initial step, allow student groups to plan their design and collect any materials they will need for their creation.
3. For differentiation, provide ideas students could possibly make, show students websites and artifacts of items that have been reused, assign students parts of a whole, keep track of the waste the classroom makes in a day/week/month, etc.
4. Discuss pros and cons of using different materials and items and why it is important to reuse/recycle them instead of throwing them away.
5. Connect to science by discussing environment, human impact, natural and non-renewable resources, reduce, reuse, recycle, pollution, etc.
6. Connect to ELA by reading Don’t Throw That Away by Lara Bergen or The Adventures of the Plastic Bottle by Alison Inches.  Both stories follow the paths of items being recycled and how to reuse them.