Green Team Gazette Season 3, Issue 5 Jan. 2011 environment, environmental education, eco, green, going green, classroom

1. The Terracycle
Curriculum Series
Terracycle (our favorite upcycling company) has made an
entire company (and a lot of money) from waste. Now,
they’ve connected with The Cloud Institute for
Sustainability Education to create the Terracycle
Curriculum series. From Terracycle’s website: “In nature,
garbage doesn’t exist, but it does in the human system….[we
focus] on how we can solve this problem.” Find lesson plan
downloads by grade level at http://www.terracycle.net/
curricula. Curriculum additions are expected 3 times a year.
The focus of the Spring 2010 lesson sets (on Nature Laws
and Principles of the Materials Cycle) are as follows:
Grade K-2: Where Do Apples Go? A Story About the
Nature of Materials
Grade 3-5: The Materials Cycle and Me
Grade 6-8: Biomimicry--Nature as Model, Measures,
and Mentor
Grade 9-12: An exploration of Cradle to Cradle Design
Thinking
Create A Graph:
Computer Graph Attack
Data analysis and the ability to read
graphs are in the NCTM math standards
at every grade level. Invite your kids to do their own
Computer Graph Attack by using page 2 of this month’s
Green Team Gazette. The “Create a Graph” website
(http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/) makes it easy
for youngsters to make a very professional-looking graph.
It also serves as an excellent “direction following” activity!!
Follow up the graphing activity by asking questions such as
the ones below about the newly-created graph:
What do you notice?
What is the mean? The median? The mode? The range?
What do you get when you add two countries’ waste?
How much more waste did New Zealand create than
Japan?
How much weight would a particular country have over
multiple years?
How much less is the annual amount of a particular
country than a ton (2,000 pounds)? How long would it
take at that rate to reach 1, 5, 10 tons?
The Green Team Gazette
Volume 3, Issue 5, page 1 January 2011
Ringing in the
New Year With
Some Rocking
eResources
I’m always amazed by the wealth that is out there on
the internet. In part, that’s how Green Team Gazette
originated--to share all the great green goodies & finds
that are out there. This month’s Green Team Gazette is
dedicated to ringing in the new year with some out-of-
sight sites!!
PreCycle & PlanetPals
We all know about “Reduce, Reuse,
Recycle,” but perhaps the best New
Year’s resolution is to commit to not
an “R,” but a “P”--PRECYCLE. A quick
review on prefixes gets us to “pre-“ meaning “before.”
So before there’s a need to RECYCLE, perhaps we should
investigate what we can do first to PREVENT
RECYCLING. The PlanetPals website has a slew of simple
precycle ideas such as staying clear of disposables or
going with reusable items (batteries, cups, bags, etc.)
versus items with an ultimate landfill-ladened lifespan.
Use PlanetPal’s ideas as a springboard to your own
brainstorming list. Make a definite plan to pursue
precycling at http://www.planetpals.com/precycle.html.
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 or on Twitter.
Please print on recycled paper. Copyright © 2011 Vicki Dabrowka
Image you will see when you get to
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createag

2. Computer Graph Attack:
Graphing Waste Per Pound, Per Person, Per Country
Directions: Use the chart below and the list of instructions below to make
a computerized graph of the average amount of waste (measured in pounds),
per person, per year, for each country. Spelling Counts! Pay attention and
don’t forget to follow the directions carefully!!
1. Go to www.google.com and type in “create a graph” in the search bar.
Click the “nces” link (which is probably the first one) or go to http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/.
2. Choose “Bar” graph.
3. In the “Design” Tab:
a. Pick “Vertical” as the direction.
b. Pick any shape.
c. For style, change nothing.
4. Click the “Data” Tab:
a. Title your graph “Annual Household Waste Per Person, Per Country ”
b. For the “X Axis,” type in “Countries”
c. For the “Y Axis,” type in “Pounds of Waste”
d. For “Source,” type in “by __________” (your name)
e. For “Data Set,” select “18” items. Do not change the number of groups.
f. For “Group Label,” type in “number of pounds of waste per person.”
g. Under “Item Label,” write in the names of each of the countries from the list.
h. Under “Value” write in the household waste in pounds per country using
the chart.
i. For “Min-Value” write in “0.”
j. For “Max-Value” type in “2000.”
k. Choose colors for bars.
5. Click on the “Labels” Tab:
a. For “Show Label” type “yes.”
b. Change only “Label color” to the color of your choice.
Change nothing else in the top box.
c. For “Font,” pick a font in the first column only
(the other ones don’t always work well.)
d. Pick a font color….do not change the font size.
6. Click the “Preview” tab.
7. Have your teacher view your graph before you print.
8. Click the “Print/Save” tab.
a. Click “Print.”
b. In the next window, click “print.”
c. Find the “print” icon and click.
d. Find where it asks you how many copies you want. Ask your teacher how many copies you should
print, type in that number, then click “print.”
e. Voila! Mission Completion!!
9. Study your graph. What do you notice? How much more waste does the US make per person than
the least wasteful country on this graph?
The Green Team Gazette
Volume 3, Issue 5, page 2 January 2011
Copyright ©
2011 Vicki
Dabrowka
Image you will see when you get to
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createag
Image you will see when you get
to the “Create A Graph” website.
Country Amount of
Waste per year
in Pounds for
Average Person
Australia 1,521
Canada 1,102
France 1,301
Germany 1,204
Iceland 1,433
Ireland 1,235
Italy 1,014
Japan 882
Mexico 683
New Zealand 1,400
Norway 1,322
Poland 705
South Korea 882
Sweden 794
Switzerland 1,322
Turkey 728
United Kingdom 1,058
United States 1,587
Data from
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/
env_was_gen-environment-waste-
generation for the year 2000,
converted from kilograms to pounds.
Included in this list are the top
5 ranking WASTEFUL countries
in the world.
Can you find them?