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Experiments and Hands on Activities on PBS Learning Media

"Making Recycled Paper" On this website, there is a step by step short video by students themselves, that teachers other students how to make their own recycled paper either in school or at home. They explain all of the resources that they will need and exactly what to do. It is fun to see what the students in the video create and how easy it is. This is a great resource as well because it also gives the exact science standards that this experiment addresses and follow up questions and talking points for after completing the experiment.
There is also another video that shows students playing a physical movement game called "Trash Dash". You see the students racing to sort out a pile of trash into three specific piles for recycling, reusing or landfill. It is very fun to see how they race to beat each other and also teaches how rushing and finishing first does not lead to winning.
Both of these videos are helpful and exciting for children because they show actual students there own age, engaging in hands on activities that they can do in their own classrooms.

Class Usage:  It would be great to use the "Making Recycled Paper" video in an art class where the students can actually make their own recycled paper and let dry to take home. They could compare the differences to the paper that we see or buy in the store today.
I would also use the more physical movement game in P.E. or as a sort of "brain break" activity to get the students moving in the middle or at the end of the day.

https://nj.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/ess05.sci.ess.earthsys.recycledpaper/making-recycled-paper/

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Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission

Established in 1902, this Commission alleviates pollution in the Passaic River. They also provide environmental instruction and awareness programs for schools grades K-12. In their outreach program, they will send a team to your school to provide a 60 minute presentation that aligns with the NJLS about water pollution and how to protect our environment. For a second part of this lesson extension, your class can actually get outdoors themselves and volunteer to clean up the basin of the river along the waterway. PVSC will provide you will all of the necessary clean up supplies and instructions on how to do this properly.

Class Usage: The outreach portion can be used as a whole school assembly during Earth Day week. Then, whichever classes are also doing a pollution unit in Science, can also take a field trip to perform a volunteer stream clean up. When we return from the clean up, students can have lunch together on recyclable material paper products and compost their food scraps in a classroom compost as well.

https://www.nj.gov/pvsc/education/

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Brainpop Jr's "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle"

In this video, Moby and Annie introduce what waste is and the different ways to get rid of it. It offers facts such as how much waste people leave in the environment every year, what biodegradable means, what natural resources are, and what the three R's are and how to apply them in everyday life. It is engaging as a little girl and a robot interact with each other to learn about these topics. At the end of the video, there are many accompanying resources to follow up with. There is a choice between an easy or hard quiz, a joke, an online game, a vocabulary review, a hands on activity which is to make recycling labels, and several other resources as well.

Class Usage: My district luckily has an account with Brainpop and Brainpop Jr, so we use these online resources regularly and my class always loves them. The students will sit on the carpet to watch the short cartoon video to be introduced with the lesson topic. Afterwards, by choosing sticks, students can come up to the front and the class can complete a quiz together. This can serve as a pre-assessment since the lesson was only introduced and not yet taught. Each student who is called reads the quiz question and facilitates a class vote before choosing the answer. Then, they pick the next student. It is always nice to end with a friendly joke that they can tell to their parents later, when they discuss their day. This can also be revisited during the next lesson for follow up hands on activity ideas.

https://jr.brainpop.com/science/conservation/reducereuserecycle/

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"The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle" and "The Adventures of an Aluminum Can" Series by Author, Alison Inches

These books are written as diary entries, from the perspectives of the plastic and aluminum objects themselves. They discuss their journey from being one type of item in their first life and then how they get recycled into a new item and a new life as another object. For example in the end, the aluminum can eventually becomes a child's baseball bat. They have fun personalities that make learning about the recycling process enjoyable and relatable to real life situations. It helps students also have empathy and a caring attitude toward the recycling process itself, which will help with them carrying it out in their own lives, as opposed to just learning about it.

Class Usage: This would be a perfect read aloud to accompany a science unit on recycling and pollution. It engages the students in the process itself in a fun, interesting way. I would also have the students bring in a plastic or aluminum item the day before, but not tell them exactly why. Then, the following day, I would read this as our class read aloud. After hearing the story, I can have the students look at their object and ask them to write about where they think their object may have been before they had it. Could their item have been once something completely different? Or will their item be something completely different in the future? It can be used as a great writing prompt with a hands on visual to help with engagement during writing. It will also help students think critically about why we choose to recycle.

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Games: Recycle Roundup

In this online game, students need to help Gus the Gorilla help sort out all of the trash in the park. Students must sort the trash into three differently colored bins. There is a blue bin for recycling with a list in the instructions on the types of materials that can be recycled such as glass, plastic, etc. There is also a green bin with a leaf symbol, where items can go if they can be used in a compost, such as leaves and old food items. Finally there is a red bin that is strictly for trash, where things such as dirty diapers or toothpaste tubes should go. There is a two minute clock that begins and trash begins falling from the sky. When time is up, it lets students know how many pounds of "garbage" they have recycled and how many pounds they have composted.

Class Usage: This can be a great way for students to assess how much they have learned after our unit. It will reinforce the information that they have learned about the different ways to handle garbage so that it doesn't just keep piling up in our world. Students also get a score depending on how many items they sorted correctly. Letting them play several rounds while trying to beat their own score, will reinforce the different types of items and what we should do with them in real life. I would have this as an activity either in a center that rotates or as a finishing activity at the end of the unit.

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/games/action/recycle-roundup-new/