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| Didax "Class Ideas" Newsletter Archive |
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Earth Day 2007 is a few weeks away (April 22) and Class Ideas is celebrating! Spring springing here in the northeast motivates us to think about the attention that our planet needs so we keep having beautiful days to enjoy.
We have two articles this month, the first about appreciating the Earth and our place on it and the second with fun, simple games that help students easily understand the importance of caring for our natural resources. We have some downloadable worksheets to help you get a quick start and a whole bunch of wonderful online resources for learning about environmental education. These sites offer lots of meaningful activities to work on with your students on this subject, so it's easy to incorporate them into your classroom lessons.
Please enjoy this issue of Class Ideas. Perhaps there is room in your busy day to help your students think about their place in the world and how they can give back to the Earth.
Thanks for reading.
Anna Mullen, Editor |
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| It's a Small World! |
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 When a space shuttle takes off from Earth and moves through the atmosphere and then into outer space, the view changes. First, the buildings of NASA disappear and the entire state of Florida comes into view. Soon after, the oceans of the Pacific and Atlantic are visible on either side of North America. As they travel further and further into space, the astronauts look in disbelief at the world globe, just like the one they have at home that they hold and turn like a ball in their hands. It?s a humbling experience.
The world, viewed as a whole, is fragile, precious, and not so large at all. Astronauts are struck by this image of the world as a finite entity. They are struck by the sensation that this planet is living and looks so different from all the others they have so often gazed at through telescopes. They are struck by a sense that the living planet has no boundaries, and that all life within it is inextricably interconnected.
Children love astronomy:
? stargazing at constellations,
? searching for shooting stars,
? learning about the planets in our solar system,
? putting the size of the earth into perspective,
? understanding that the earth is not limitless.
But what sets our planet apart is that it has life?plants and animals?and for life to be healthy, the entire world environment must be healthy.
The term environment is defined as ?the complete range of external conditions, physical and biological, in which an organism lives.? Baleen whales, for example, need the ocean to live in and plankton to feed on. Most species migrate to give birth in warmer ocean waters towards the equator, living at other times in cooler, plankton-rich waters. Changes to the environment of baleen whales at one time seemed impossible. The oceans are so vast?nothing we could ever do would damage them.
Unfortunately, even oceans are now being affected detrimentally by human activities. It seems that no environment on earth has not been adversely affected by people. Even animals in the practically uninhabited arctic regions are now registering toxins.
To better comprehend how human practices have such far-reaching effects, we need to understand the dynamics of the atmosphere (air) and the hydrosphere (water). Because air and water are constantly moving, driven by energy supplied by the sun, toxins emitted from a factory can end up being transported via wind (air) and current (water) to all corners of the globe. Due to the cumulative effect of the industrial revolution combined with the expanding human population, there is so much pollution waste entering our atmosphere and hydrosphere that it is unable to satisfactorily disperse.
It is important that children understand that many human activities are causing large-scale changes to the environment. But it is just as important for them to grasp the concept that it is the combined effect of all people that creates these problems. It will take the combined effort of all people to solve these problems by acting in the best interest of the natural world.
Take, for example, a wetland. Ask the children to imagine all the kinds of things that live in a wetland and how they are all connected (what do they eat, where do they live):
? reeds, grassy plants, algae?live in the water
? trees around the wetland?rely on the water
? fish, crayfish, shrimp?eat plants, live in the water
? birds?eat fish and plants, live in the trees
? large birds of prey?eat fish and birds, live in the trees
? alligators?eat fish, live in the water and on the land.
Ask the children what would happen to those plants and animals in the following scenarios:
? pollution is poured from a factory into the wetland
? trees around the wetland are chopped down
? anglers catch all the fish
? the wetland is drained and land is reclaimed for crops.
All of them have damaging effects, with the last resulting in an instant and complete loss of the wetland community. Over time, the others may be just as damaging because of the way all nature is connected, the food chain or web of life.
Finally, ask the children to think of ways we could look after the wetland. |
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| Earth Awareness Games |
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 by Naomi Budden
The following games should help young children understand the concepts of threats to nature.
Game 1: Web of Life - up to 22 children
Objective: Students see the effect of habitat destruction on the whole ecosystem.
Students stand in a circle and each is given a name badge with a plant or animal that lives in a rainforest, as follows:
Fern, Orchid, Quandong tree, Grass tree, Butterfly, Beetle, Bee, Mosquito, Parrot, Toucan, Dove, Macaw, Possum, Sloth, Gibbon, Fruit bat, Frog, Lizard, Snake, Ocelot, Komodo dragon.
One student is given the Sun as a badge. This student has to hold the end of a ball of string. The following questions are asked:
1. What needs the sun to grow? (String is passed to all plants.)
2. What insects rely on plants? (String is passed to all insects.)
3. What eats plants and insects? (String is passed to all birds, mammals, frog and lizard.)
4. What eats animals? (String is passed to snake, ocelot and komodo dragon.)
A web has been created.
Explain that this is the web of life?all animals and plants are connected. What happens if we cut all the plants down? Ask the students who are plants to sit down and tug on the string. When students feel a tug on the string, they must also sit down. Eventually, only the sun is left standing.
Game 2: Tree Hollows - up to 30 children
Objective: Students see the effect of logging/introduced species.
10 pairs of children (20 children) stand towards each other with hands held up touching palm to palm. They are tree hollows in a forest.
The remaining 10 children are given an animal character?some are birds, some are possums, some are snakes (all animals that rely on hollows in trees to live and breed).
The children move around the edge of the forest, pretending to be their animal. When you say ?Here comes the fox (or cat, dog, etc.). Run and hide!? the children run into the forest and look for a hollow.
But then the bulldozers come in and take away one of the trees (2 children) and a hollow is gone.
Repeat the action but this time, one of the animals misses out on a hollow to hide in. The bulldozers come in again, and animals keep missing out, until there are no hollows to hide in.
Game 3: Pollution Game - two teams
Objective: To see the effect polluting has on the environment and its wildlife.
Need: Lots of newspapers scrunched up, plastic cups, any other paper trash (enough to fill two trash bags), 2 trash bags
1. Teams arrange themselves on each side of a line marked on the ground.
2. The contents of the trash bags are tipped out, one of each side of the line.
3. Ready, set, GO! The teams begin picking up and throwing the trash on their opponent?s side of the line, until they are told to stop.
4. Ask the children what has happened?everything becomes polluted and there appears to be no winner. Ask them to imagine all this rubbish in a river and what effect it would have on the wildlife.
5. Next, the teams are given back their bags?this time, the team that manages to get all of its trash back into the bag the quickest is the winner. |
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| Downloadable Earth Awareness Activity Pages |
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 This month's free activity pages come from Didax's brand new series, Earth Awareness. There is an activity from each of the Antarctica, Environmental Issues and Rainforests books. Each set of pages include teacher notes, worksheets and answers. They are an easy and meaningful way to get your fifth through eighth grade students thinking about the world around them. Enjoy! |
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| Earth Day Internet Links |
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 Just a quick Internet search finds loads of wonderful information about Earth Day 2007. Here are a few sites to get you started. There's an Environmental Kids Club at the EPA, an interesting article about Earth Day's history written by it's founder, a great site about National Environmental Education Week (April 15-22), and more. |
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| May Newsletter Theme: Self-Esteem |
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 Teachers know that most children don't learn simply because they love learning. Many other factors will influence whether or not a child will experience success. Individual, class and teacher self-esteem will affect learning. The next issue of Class Ideas will address the importance of creating positive self-esteem to promote learning with a helpful article, worksheets and links to Internet resources. |
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