Don’t Be Mean Go Green!

To Educators,

Being kind to our Earth is so important now more than ever! This book is geared towards Fifth Graders. Introducing topics about how to respect the Earth at a young age can inspire students to be the change. This book will introduce The Three R’s, single use plastics, the importance of being sustainable, and making conscious choices, no matter how small, that benefit the Earth each day!

Includes:Discussion questions, Activity

Learning Objectives:

Students will:

• Name and define the Three R’s
• Describe what single-use plastics are
• Categorize what is recyclable

The Three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Reduce: Cutting back on how much we use and the amount of trash we make

Buy less, avoid waste, turn off lights, take shorter showers, carpool, etc.!

Reuse: Finding new ways to use things or using them more than once!

Use cloth shopping bags, repair, regift, repurpose, reusable water bottles, etc.

Recycle: Separate waste material so recyclable products can be made into something new!

Single-use Plastics

Single-use plastic products are products that are used once or a very few times and then thrown away.

Some. samples of single-use plastic products are

• plastic water bottles
• plastic bags: shopping bags, sandwich bags, ziplock bags
• plastic cutlery: forks, knives, spoons, straws

They will still be here in hundreds of years!

Plastic bags take 200-1,000 years to decompose

Plastic water bottles take 450 years to decompose

Plastic forks, spoons, and knives take up to 1,000 years

Let’s Discuss!

What choices can you make that are good for the Earth?

Swap your…                  For a…

Plastic water bottle        Re-usable water bottle

Paper Towel                  Cloth Towel

Plastic Bag                    Mesh/Cotton Bag

New products                Products made from recycled materials

Activity

Pick out which items can be recycled!

glass bottles      magazines     newspapers     light bulbs

shredded paper     prescription bottles        plastic jugs

used pizza boxes    styrofoam    mail     mix cartons

aluminum foil      tin cans      flower pots      books

You can recycle…

glass bottles

magazines

newspapers

shredded paper

plastic jugs

mail

tin cans

books

But you can’t recycle…

light bulbs

prescription bottles

used pizza boxes

styrofoam

milk cartons

aluminum foil

flower pots

I hope you enjoyed learning about going green! Remember that you don’t have to be perfect but its important to be conscious of your actions in how you treat our Earth!  🙂