Student PSEA Outreach to Teach: Secondary Lesson Plan

Student PSEA Outreach to Teach: Secondary Lesson Plan
Park Forest Middle School ‐ April 3, 2009
Unit of Study: Environment
Topic: How ecologically friendly are you?
Prior Knowledge:
‐General background knowledge of environmental issues
‐Understand the basic concepts of recycling
‐Basic math skills (multiplication tables)
Essential Questions:
What are current environmental issues?
What impact do your actions have on the environment both today and in the future?
Objectives: Students will be able to:
‐evaluate daily actions by answering a survey on their choices and how those choices impact the
environment
‐work in groups to calculate how much waste they generate per week, how much waste their family
generates per week and how much waste the student body generates in a year.
‐ work in groups to make a list with ideas on how to reduce the waste that students at Park Forest
Middle School generate at school and at home
‐share unique ideas to reduce waste with the class
Materials Needed:
‐ Environmental Impact Quiz
‐ Calculators
‐ Lined pieces of paper
‐ Pencil or pen

Game Plan:
Activating Strategy:
Give students environmental impact quiz. Give students about 3 minutes to complete the quiz and
compute their final score.
1. Environmental Impact Quiz
7 minutes total (to pass out quizzes, complete quizzes and share scores)
Teachers Actions
Teachers pass out quizzes, one to every student.
Teacher asks students to share their scores with
the class (choose a few students to be examples).
Students Actions
Students take quiz individually. Students calculate
scores and share scores.
Step‐by‐Step:
*Teacher asks students to assemble into small groups (3‐4 small groups depending on the class)*
Each Student PSEA member takes a group and teaches their small group this lesson
2. Direct Teaching : Calculators and lined piece of paper need for this section
8 minutes
Teacher Actions
Teacher presents to the class that nearly 5 pounds
of waste is generated per person per day. How
much waste would you generate in a week?
Teacher instructs students to think about how
much waste their family generates per week.
Teacher instructs students to think about and
calculate how much waste their student body (763
students) generates in a year. Students should
take 763 (student body) and multiply it by 5
(pounds of waste generated per day) and then by
365 (number of days in the year).
Student Actions
Students bring calculators to groups and multiply 7
by 5 to figure out that 35 pounds of waste is
generated per person per week.
Students multiplies 35 times the number of people
in their family. Students share answers with their
group. (Students use lined paper and calculators
as needed).
Students generate number of how much waste
their student body generates in a year. They will
get how many pounds of waste is generated per
year by their student body. 1,392,475 pounds

3. Checks for Understanding: Lists of ideas to reduce waste (Notebook paper and pencil needed for this
section)
10 minutes
*In groups*
Teacher Actions
Teacher instructs students to brainstorm as many
ways as possible to reduce the waste that the
student body generates both at school AND at
home.
Teacher helps their small group to think of ideas.
Student Actions
Students think of ideas such as Buying less, buying
less packaging, reusing, recycling, composting, etc,
share these ideas as a group. Students should be
thinking of as many ideas to reduce waste and
help the environment as possible.
Students share original ideas and then make a list
of ideas to reduce waste. Students can write their
ideas down on a piece of note book paper.
Students have 10 minutes to make this list.
3. Sharing Time/Closure: Students share list of ideas on how to reduce waste with the class
10 minutes
Teacher Actions
Teachers supervise their group when they are
sharing. Teachers then ask the students who has
the most ideas that were not used by other
groups. This group is then the winner!
Student Actions
Students share their lists with the class. As the
groups are presenting all students should be
listening to find ideas that are the same as theirs.
If another group has the same idea as the idea
currently being shared, the group members will
raise their hand and each group will scratch that
idea off of their list. All groups will share and the
other groups will continue to raise their hands if
their list also contains that idea. The group with
the most amount of ideas that were not thought
of by other groups will be the winners.