As e-commerce increases, the demand for packaging materials and the potential for generating waste and negative environmental impacts also rise. Packing peanuts are a type of plastic packaging material that are used to protect goods during the shipping process. Petroleum-based plastics are common packaging materials due to their low cost, light…

As the number of jobs in the science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) workforce grows exponentially, there has never been a more important time to provide students with real-world learning opportunities that have 21st century implications. Measuring things that matter is a fundamental skill that formulates the backbone of many concepts…

Courses: Rhetorical Criticism, Composition, Environmental Communication. Objectives: This unit activity, for which students view a documentary to identify and evaluate persuasive ethos and then create their own rhetorical messages for reducing food waste, serves as a platform for teaching both the critique and practice of rhetoric, as well as…

This instructional resource introduces a framework for authentic multicultural pedagogy through the lens of specific Asian artists, art processes, and connections to student experience. Resources discussed are all a part of a larger unit of study titled "Trash to Treasure," where students focused on various Asian artists, Tan Zi Xi and…

Whether you teach elementary school students, secondary school students, or college students, you can include upcycling activities in your class to promote both design skills and an environmental ethic. This article shares how a teacher at one school is doing just this, providing suggestions for those who have different material processing…

Roadways are literally soaked with petrochemical byproducts, oils, gasoline, and other volatile substances that eventually run off into sewers and end up in rivers, waterways, and other undesirable places. Can the roads be cleaned of these wastes, with their proper disposal? Can vehicles, robots, or other devices be designed that could be driven…

The happy chatter and clatter of students bounce off the lunchroom walls at a Northside Elementary School in Sandpoint, Idaho as children eagerly gobble their food and slurp their drinks. Boys and girls with crinkled brown bag lunches filled with disposable products sit next to students with trays heaped with hot lunch and all manner of synthetic…

The average American produces around 1,600 pounds of garbage every year, and it is estimated that 50 percent of that waste is material that could be composted (Clean Air Council, 2012). Instead, most is sent to landfills and incinerators. In technology and engineering education, a great deal of time is spent in talking, teaching, and thinking…

Many of today's students have embraced an environmental ethic and are motivated by efforts to reduce waste or to remanufacture waste into viable products. In-class efforts to reuse and remanufacture waste can be especially motivating. They can also help students develop a better understanding of life-cycle analysis, waste-stream management,…

This article describes a series of activities in which students investigate soil, culminating in the biomimicry of reducing landfill waste. After students learned about soil's ecosystem structure and the function of its food web with nutrient cycling and decomposition, they discovered that they know a solution to reduce the trash in landfills by…

This project involved developing a method to remediate large quantities of aqueous waste from a general chemistry laboratory experiment. Aqueous Ni(II) waste from a general chemistry laboratory experiment was converted into solid nickel hydroxide hydrate with a substantial decrease in waste volume. The remediation method was developed for a…

This compendium is a tool for bringing waste management education into classrooms. Curriculum materials gathered from across the country were reviewed by California's top environmental educators, both for correlation with the state's educational frameworks and for accuracy and completeness of waste management information. Materials that cover…

This guide was developed to present activities which inform the teacher and students of solid waste management problems that are becoming commonplace in villages. The lessons included present alternatives for taking care of the environment and contains methods to make not only school children more sensitive to environmental problems, but hopefully…

The Iowa Clean SWEEP program is designed to provide educators, K-12, with a series of activities focusing upon critical concepts related to Iowa's solid waste problem. This activity packet contains 19 activities for grades K-6, and 25 activities for grades 7-12. Key concepts addressed throughout the activity packet include: (1) an overview, the…

Provided are solid waste/energy curriculum materials for grades K-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-9, and 10-12. Separate folders containing units of study (focusing on trash, litter, and recycling) are provided for kindergarten (four units), grade 1 (two units), and grade 2 (two units). Folders contain teachers' directions and activity cards which include picture…