Green Team Gazette Season 3, Issue 2 Oct. 2010

1. A Li’l Boat Named Plastiki
For 4 months this summer, the Plastiki, led by David de
Rothschild and Jo Royle, traversed the Pacific Ocean from San
Francisco, CA to Sydney, Australia. Not your normal sailing
vessel, the Plastiki is a catamaran constructed from 12,500
plastic water bottles. Their mission: to show you can make
something out of reusable, usable materials while
also showcasing the Eastern
Garbage Patch of plastic trash
garbage, deteriorating out in
the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
To download a Kids’ “Fun Pack”
from the Plastiki to educate your
young ones, go to http://www.the
plastiki.com/ plasticsissues/. Of
particular interest is the map on page 3: “The Plastiki Plastic
Map.” This is a GREAT map to turn into an educational, math
game! Print, have kids grab game-markers and either
subtraction or division flash cards, then team up kids to be
game partners. Use the hash-marks on the Plastiki Plastic Map
as game spaces. As kids take turns drawing flash cards, have
them move the number of spaces of their math answer. When
you hit the proverbial “fork in the road,” have kids take the
curly-cue, longer route unless their math facts have them land
on the hash-mark closest to the initial “T” in the words
“Tentative Route of the Plastiki.” In that case, the straighter,
shorter route is his/her route to success. A player wins when
he/she is wiser, and reaches Australia!!
The Green Team Gazette
Volume 3, Issue 2, page 1 October 2010
A River Runs Through It
Looking for-
ward to a
little educa-
tional humor
about how
trash starts in your back yard and winds up in the ocean?
Check out “Sherman’s Lagoon” by Jim Toomey. Here, Jim
Toomey shows a comic strip path of how pollution gets
from point A to point B in a humorous (yet, eye-opening)
way: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/
cartonist-explains-the-pacific-garbage-patch-with-
talking-sealife-slideshow.php
If I Were A River
Share this poem
with your class,
for discussion,
dictation, or hand-
writin activity.
Or, as a class, add
a few stanzas of
your own to make
a bigger, better
poem.
Picture from my camera from the “Wonders of Water WOW!” exhibit at
Baltimore’s Port Discovery Children’s Museum …great detailed image of
all the many components of the Water Cycle! (Showing the good, the
bad, and the ugly…not just the limited “precipitation, evaporation,
condensation” cycle of days gone by!).
http://www.portdiscovery.org/#home
The Green Team Gazette is a publication
co-sponsored by the founders of CynerGreen
CGKidz, and Eagle Cove School (formerly
“Gibson Island Country School”), a Green
School in Pasadena, Maryland. Our mission is
to educate and share ways to “go green”—both big & small--
and be environ-mentally-proactive at home, in school, and
beyond. It is written by Vicki Dabrowka, 3rd grade teacher
& co-Green Team Leader at Eagle Cove School. To learn
more visit www.cynergreen.com, www.cgkidz.com, and
www.eaglecoveschool.org. You can also follow us at
http://greenteamgazette.blogspot.com/ or find us at “Green
Team Gazette” on Facebook.
Please print on recycled paper. Copyright © 2010 Vicki Dabrowka
If I were a river,
Rambling I would be,
Flowing down the mountains
To my mouth down by the sea.
If I were a river
Boats would travel me,
Taking people and some cargo
Everywhere they need to be.
If I were a river
I hope that I would see
An end to all our pollution
And people taking care of me.

2. Name ________________________ Date ______________________
Place Value Using Famous Rivers of the World
Rivers are remarkable! They are a vital for the water cycle. They form the habitat for many
fresh water creatures, which in turn benefits other creatures that live nearby. Rivers also provide
us with drinkable water. We all need healthy rivers, and we all need to be a part of that.
“Boundaries don't protect rivers, people do”. ~Brad Arrowsmith, Landowner along the Niobrara River, Nebraska
Use the Table of Rivers to complete the questions below.
1. Write the length of the Yukon
River in expanded form.
2. Which river is 1,100 miles
longer than the Indus River?
3. If you added the length of the
Murray and the Darling Rivers,
what would the total length
be? Show your work.
4. Pick any two rivers to add
together. What is their total?
Show your work.
River 1: _______________
River 2: _______________
5. How much longer is the
Mississippi River than the
Mackenzie River.
Show your work.
Use <, >, or = to compare the following: Show your equation.
6. Danube River versus Ob River
7. Amazon River versus Huang He
River
The Green Team Gazette
Volume 3, Issue 2 , page 2 October 2010
Principle
Rivers of the
World
Approx
length
mi.
Nile 4,180
Amazon 3,912
Mississippi-
Missouri-
Red Rock
3,710
Chang Jiang
(Yangtze)
3,602
Ob 3,459
Huang He
(Yellow)
2,900
Paraná 2,795
Zaire (Congo) 2,716
Mackenzie 2,635
Niger 2,600
Volga 2,291
Yukon 1,979
Indus 1,800
Danube 1,766
Darling 1,702
Murray 1,609
Ganges 1,557
Orinoco 1,281
Rhine 820
Copyright ©
2010 Vicki
Dabrowka