Day 1 Lesson: Conservation and Sustainability

Conservation The careful utilization of a natural resource in order to prevent its depletion Use only what you need to prevent the Earth's resources from dwindling and eventually disappearing

Sustainability Sustainability is often defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” Carry on into the future with no negative impacts on the environment Using materials that can be reused or regrown

What’s not sustainable? Plastic Wrap, Aluminum Foil, Styrofoam, Gas/Oil, Tin, Water, Glass, Uranium Paper, Linen, Cardboard, Canvas, Cotton, Burlap, Hemp Natural Elements (dirt, leaves, rocks, plants, timber, shells, sunlight, wind) What’s sustainable?

What is “recyclable” Recycling is processing used materials (waste) into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials. Examples: Paper Aluminum Some Plastic Glass

(Do Not Write This!) Materials for Group Work Activity: An “average’ student lunch box Burger wrapped in paper An apple or orange wrapped in foil A chips in a baggie A drink in a plastic bottle A candy in a wrapper A cake wrapped in saran wrap

Recycling Activity (Do Not Write This!) Separate the Food Products from the Packaging Eat the edible food or return anything you do not want to eat to the teacher Use the packaging materials and recreate them into something “useful.” Use all the packaging materials and you may create more than one “useful” thing Present your useful creation to the class Extra Credit  create something pertaining to survival

Day 2 Lesson: More Conservation and Sustainability

Using sustainable products is essential to the survival of the earth By overly relying on non-renewable resources the human population is putting a great deal of pressure on the global environment and this may lead to irreversible changes which could be catastrophic pollution, lost resources, toxicity, global warming, greenhouse effect Using sustainable products is essential to the survival of the earth

What’s the Problem? Many companies use non-sustainable resources and that we need to consider sustainable alternatives. Packaging is wasteful and creates more garbage/pollution. What Can You Do?

Sustainability Activity: (Do Not Write This!) Group Work: For each food in your lunchbag from the other day, please answer the following: 1. Design your own sustainable packaging for one food in the lunch bag. The objective here is for your tribe to design packaging to be as “sustainable” as possible. What does it look like? What material do you want to use for packaging the food? Why does the material you selected have the correct properties for the job it needs to do? Does it come from renewable or non-renewable resources? Can it be reused or recycled? 4. Are the packaging materials likely to be more or less popular with consumers? Why or why not? 5. Present your packaging: explaining how you tried to make it sustainable and explain its pros/cons.

Ways to Conserve: Utilize recycling bins in every classroom Edit your papers on the computer instead of printing off multiple copies just for editing Try not to print as many pages as possible by shrink the size of the ink and printing on the front/back of a page

Continued… Reuse notebooks if there is paper left in them. This will also save you some money! If your teacher requires a notebook for class, buy “Greenbooks” instead. They only cost about $1 more and are made from recycled paper Take shorter showers

Closure Come up with 20 different things that you or your family can do at home to conserve resources Come up with 20 different things that you or your teachers/administrators can do at school to conserve resources