Week 3 of Sustainable Youth

This week’s lesson at Nora Sterry Elementary was Pollution. On Monday night, we met to plan the lesson; pollution is such a broad topic, and the hardest part was choosing how to define and present it. We decided to make a “fill-in-the-blank” vocab sheet to pass out to the class in order to organize the information and help with definitions.
Tuesday morning, Tony began the lesson, and like usual, reviewed the definition of sustainability and conducted a brief recap of the previous lesson about water. He then stated our definition of pollution as “the introduction of contaminants into a system that changes the ecosystem”. We distributed the vocabulary sheet to the class with this definition and also the four categories of pollution: water, air, light, and land. Tony presented a slideshow with pictures and examples of each type, while the kids took some brief notes.
Next, Stef led an activity that demonstrated light pollution. We brought glow-in-the-dark stars and taped them up all over the classroom white board and turned off the lights. The kids marveled at the glow and we explained that this simulates the stars at night without light pollution. Then, we asked them to close their eyes. When they opened them, Tony, Stef, and I were shining flashlights onto the glow stars---you could no longer see their glow! City lights and light pollution seemingly “dim” the stars; we discussed why this is harmful, and then moved on to give an example of light pollution’s negative effect on animals.
Stef explained that when baby sea turtles hatch during the nighttime, they automatically look for the moon’s reflection off the water in order to know which direction to crawl. However, they get confused if there is light pollution coming from all directions!
We had the kids close their eyes while Stef stood in front of the room, holding a single flashlight. They were instructed to act like baby sea turtles and when they opened their eyes, point in the direction of the “water" (Stef’s light). This was easy, as there was only one light. Then, we repeated this, but Tony, Stef, and I all stood around the room in different corners holding our lights. When the kids opened their eyes, they didn’t know which direction was the “water”!
After, I led an activity called the “Seepy Sandwich”, from a lesson plan I had found online in order to demonstrate ground water pollution and chemical runoff. We split the class into three groups; each had a slice of bread which they held vertically. We put a few drops of red food coloring, or the pollutants, on the top crust of the bread and watched it seep down. Then, to simulate rain, we sprayed water on their bread and the water carried the pollutants all the way down to the bottom of the slice! I then presented information about pesticide runoff and other types of groundwater pollution, connecting it to health hazards and habitat loss. I also asked the kids if they thought it would be easy to remove the red food coloring from the bread, showing that these types of pollution are extremely difficult and costly to clean up.
Next, we divided the class into four groups and assigned each a type of pollution: air, water, land, and light. They had to create and present a skit to the class about their category of pollution and how to prevent it—they were really entertaining.
Finally, we discussed how to prevent pollution in our daily lives and concluded with a short writing activity about ways they can make a difference.
I felt like they gained a lot from our lesson, but this was the first week that we had some slight issues with classroom control. They get excited and loud when we do lots of group activities.
I really want to do a lesson on food and eating locally/organically/healthier, but watching “Food Inc” in class today brought up some good points. The lower income family featured in the documentary that got most of its food from fast food restaurants and chose not to buy the expensive broccoli immediately made me think of the Nora Sterry kids. It is difficult to encourage a healthier lifestyle when cheap calories are so much easier and less expensive and ultimately prevail in their lives. It would be a good challenge to come up with a lesson that addresses these issues.
Looking forward to next week!