We Can Make A Difference: Mrs. McGowan's First Grade

aMrs. McGowan H. W. Mountz School Spring Lake, NJ
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~ We Can Make A Difference ~

Activities & Links Back to Earth Day Page
Home Ideas for Spring

Gather your class for mini lessons about caring for our wonderful planet. Take your time, go slowly, just do one or two brief activities each day. This will help reinforce the concept of an ongoing need to care for the environment.

Plan time for student talk! This is so important because children often have misconceptions about the world. Last year, one of my little ones wanted to draw a picture of a cheetah when we were thinking about animals seen in our New Jersey town!

Introduction

Use your favorite method of introducing a new theme to your children. I love to start new ideas with a story. My favorite story for this theme is about the rescue of a little seal and other wildlife after a huge oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The little seal, named Prince William by the child in the story, survives his ordeal.

A favorite activity to go along with this book is to let students explore using oil and water on feathers. They can see firsthand how the oil sticks to the feathers and makes a bird wet and sick.

Oil and Water Testing

Materials: 2 feathers for each student, salad oil, water, paper towels

Students take turns dipping their feather in water and letting the feather "dry" by waving it, blowing on it. They will see it fluff up in a little while.

Next, they dip their other feather into salad oil. (Discuss how this is not harmful oil since we use it in salads and cooking, but the oil that spills in the sea is poisonous if eaten, and is very sticky). They will see that the feather does not fluff up, stays wet and is coated with the oil.

Here is another interesting site to extend the lesson:
Penguin Sweaters

~ Earth Day Resources for the Classroom ~

Welcome to Recycle City! This is a great website! There's lots to do here - people and places to visit and plenty of ways to explore how the city's residents recycle, reduce, and reuse waste. They offer printer-friendly versions and the whole site can be downloaded for offline use.

Recycle City School Find 3 special things kids are learning in school about protecting the environment. (The school is a blue building with a black roof).

We Can Help 2001 Students' ideas.

The History of Earth Day Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day in 1970. In the same year, Denis Hayes coordinated the first Earth Day in the United States. As a result of Earth Day, many environmental laws were passed and the Environmental Protection Agency was created.

The Lorax' Save the Trees Game Online fun after reading Lynn Cherry's wonderful book!

Build A Bouquet More drag and drop fun, this time with flowers. It's from Pat's Web Graphics.

Getting Green: A Virtual Field Trip For Earth Day This really is for older students (lots of text to read) but very interesting and gives many links.

The Great Kapok Tree Cyber Guide A terrific SCORE unit; grades 3+.

ReadWriteThink Earth Day Activities Try the Letter Generator for students to write a friendly or business letter.

What Can I Do? An Earth Day Story This story shows how even one person can make a difference in helping our earth!

Adopt A Whale Support the exciting work of the Whale Center of New England and adopt a whale. See our humpback whale, Tornado. In the past our class has adopted Ember and Colt.

E Patrol Energy Savers How can you save energy in each room of your house?

The Energy Story What is energy and how can we conserve it?

Billy Bear's... It's Earth Day!

Earth Day at Kids Domain

Earth Day at edhelper.com

Crafts for Earth Day

Earth Day Quiz at Enchanted Learning

The Ocean's In Trouble: Webquest

Coloring Books! Color Our World Bright and Beautiful Lots of books to color online or print pages, all with an environmental theme.

Paint Pot Graphics
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