Do Now – EARTH DAY! 1.What percentage of BeCl 2 is chlorine? 2.Why do you think people celebrate Earth Day?

Agenda Bubble Gum Investigation Earth Day! Poster Work Time Exit Ticket

Objectives SWBAT perform an investigation to calculate the percent composition of bubble gum. SWBAT describe the effects of bubble gum, cigarette butts, junk mail, and plastic bags on the environment. SWBAT make an Earth Day Promise.

Percent Composition Formula mass element x 100 = % element mass compound

Percent Composition Bubble Gum Investigation Your task is to calculate the percent composition of bubble gum. We are assuming that bubble gum is composed of 2 things – gum and sugar. You should be able to calculate the percent gum and percent sugar after completing your investigation.

Is Bubble Gum Biodegradeable? No! It is not! It is made in part from not only non- nutritive but also non-biodegradable substances Every commercial gum has a gum base –Gum bases are the part that we chew and chew and chew –They are grouped in categories: elastomers (including natural and synthetic rubbers), resins, plasticizers (such as waxes, vegetable oils, and glycerides), adjuvants (including calcium carbonate, talc, or other charging agents), and antioxidants –Like plastic, wax, or rubber Bottom line: Don't spit your gum out in the compost or on the sidewalk, and don't stick it under the table; put it in the trash. Contrary to persistent urban legends, you can also swallow your gum. It'll eventually pass right on through, undigested. Yum.

Butts and Gum March 2006: Cigarette butts and chewed up wads of gum litter and muck up city streets everywhere. Environmental news website Grist.com reports on Butts & Gum: Preventing Forest Fires, who have developed portable ashtrays and gum pouches for cigarette ends and bubblegum blobs.Grist.com Boodi eco-ashtray

Butts and Gum Throughout England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales people are being fined at least £50 for dropping cigarette butts and chewing gum, and councils are spending hundreds of millions of pounds on removing such litter from our streets. Our Gum Pouch and Butt Pouch provide effective, sustainable solutions for reducing and eventually eradicating cigarette and chewing gum litter. Butts & Gum anti-litter pouches provide affordable means of cigarette and gum disposal while on the move. They simply prevent litter from being dropped, so the user will not face a litter fine and the environment will avoid the damaging effects of littered cigarette butts and chewing gum.

Happy Earth Day! Earth Day is celebrated on April 22 nd each year in 175 countries around the world Designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the earth's environment

Some Important (and Perhaps Shocking) Statistics Bubble Gum Cigarette Butts Junk mail Plastic Bags

Bubble Gum Chewing gum is litter too! Many different types of chemicals are used to try and rid a surface of chewed chewing gum. The gum and those chemicals are then rinsed off, travel down the drains and run into the ocean Chewing gum is not biodegradable and will stick to its surface for many, many years until treated Birds (especially young birds) have died by eating chewing gum

Bubble Gum Annually, there is over 650,000 metric tons of chewing gum produced (2005 statistic) every year – It is predicted that in the next 5 years, over 1 million metric tones of chewing gum will be produced There are over 374 trillion sticks of chewing gum made every year –Did you know that 374 trillions sticks of gum stacked on top of each other is approximately 2,305,800 miles high? Next to cigarette butts chewing gum is the second largest littering item in the world! The average person chews over 300 pieces of chewing gum a year

Bubble Gum Chewing gum increases in value after it is purchased. Chewed chewing gum is more valuable after it is chewed, than before when it is sold in a store. By the time the gum is chewed and ends up on the pavement, a piece of gum increases in value by up to 15 times. A pack of gum (15 sticks to a pack) would cost approximately $1.39 (each stick's net worth is $0.09). Each stick would cost approximately $1.50-$3.00 to clean up. You do the math...that is approximately $25 per pack of gum to clean up off the sidewalk, in front of your business entrance, at a church, school, movie theatre, airplane etc.

Bubble Gum What You Can Do! Don’t throw gum on the ground or put it under benches/desks (especially in Ms. Stroh’s classroom) Go live in Singapore where they have banned gum

Cigarette Butts Warning: According to ButtsOut, the world annually discards about 4.3 trillion cigarette butts. By some estimates, 30% of all cigarettes smoked end up as litter, and although they are small themselves, they can create over 500,000 tons of pollution per year. Traditional butts are made of “synthetic polymer cellulose acetate” and never degrade, only breaking apart after roughly 12 years. Yet within an hour of contact with water, cigarette butts can begin leaching chemicals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into the marine environment. And that's not counting for the fact they also end up in in the intestines of “fish, whales, birds and other marine animals”.

Cigarette Butts What You Can Do! Don’t smoke Never throw a cigarette butt on the ground Use portable ashtrays Don’t smoke

Junk Mail More than 100 million trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail The world’s temperate forests absorb 2 billion tons of carbon annually – creating and shipping junk mail produces more greenhouse gas emissions than 9 million cars About 28 billion gallons of water are wasted to produce and recycle junk each year You waste about 70 hours a year dealing with junk mail

Junk Mail What You Can Do! You can take your family’s names off junk mail lists! Go to or

Plastic Bags Introduced just over 25 years ago, the ugly truth about our plastic bag addiction is that society's consumption rate is now estimated at well over 500,000,000,000 (that's 500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute Single-use bags made of high- density polyethylene (HDPE) are the main culprit. Once brought into existence to tote your purchases, they'll accumulate and persist on our planet for up to 1,000 years.

Plastic Bags According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags. The production of plastic bags creates enough solid waste per year to fill the Empire State Building two and a half times. Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food.

Plastic Bags Taiwan banned plastic bags last year. The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store. Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC one group harvests 30,000 per month. 60,000 plastic bags are being used EVERY SECOND!

Plastic Bags What You Can Do! Buy or make plastic bag creations Use re-usable bags when you go to the grocery store or mall If you forget your bag, use as few plastic bags as possible! Recycle and/or reuse plastic bags when able –Some stores have bins for used plastic bags!

Plastic Bag Creations

In Honor of Mother Earth… Construct an Earth Day “Promise Poster” to show how you plan to nurture yo momma the way she has nurtured you your entire life! Pick at least one thing to showcase Use 8.5” x 11” paper Will be hung up around school to inspire your fellow Hurricanes

Exit Ticket 1.What percentage of your bubble gum was sugar? 2.What is your Earth Day Promise?