Below are sample project ideas to get you and your class brainstorming possible project ideas that will change your school!

Green Space

Energy Use

Materials Use

Green Space

Learn

Problem: On our playground there is a hill that goes down to a creek. Many children play on this hill and even ride their bikes down it. There are not many plants on the hill and when it rains, the water in the creek gets very muddy. This is because of erosion. A local park ranger told us that the animals and plants that used to live in the stream are gone because it gets so muddy.

We watched a video about erosion and used a virtual lab to find out how to keep it from happening. We also got books from our media center to read about erosion and used the reading from the web site.

Plan

From the video, we know that plants have roots that will stop the dirt from washing into the stream. The park ranger said that plants take a long time to grow enough roots to stop the erosion. He said that we should put up a plastic barrier at the bottom of the hill until the plants can grow big enough to help.

We know that the children will keep using the hill unless we convince them to stop.

Our plan is to let everyone in the school know about the problem and what we will be doing about it. We will first put up the plastic barrier, and then plant 10 shrubs that spread their roots quickly. We will plant them in a zig-zag pattern so they will help each other spread the roots. We will put up a fence around the area with signs explaining that this is an environment project and to please stay off. We will send a message home with all the students explaining what is happening. We will ask parents to contribute to help us get plants and the plastic barrier..

Act

We asked the principal to let us go to each classroom and explain what we were going to do. We asked students to stop riding their bikes and walking on the hill. We sent home flyers explaining what we want to do and what we needed.

A parent had some fencing he wasn't using, and gave it to us. It was just a little more than we needed. Whew! We got stakes from another person to hold up the fence. No one had the plastic, so we took some old, clean, good toys and had a toy sale at school and got enough money to get the plastic fence and some, but not all of the shrubs. We could buy 6 of them. Our teacher talked with the owner of the nursery and she said that she would donate the other four. We wrote her a big thank you note! She also gave us some peat moss and some mulch to help with the planting.

We invited everyone from the school to help plant the shrubs and put up the fences on a Saturday. We had over 50 people there! It only took about two hours and the PTO had people bring drinks and snacks. That tasted good after all our hard work!

Reflect & Extend

Now there is plastic fencing along the bottom of the hill above the creek and shrubs planted that are growing. We are watering the shrubs once a week. Once it is winter, we won't need to water them again until spring.

Good news! The creek is not getting muddy any more.

Our advice to others who do this is to be sure to get everyone's cooperation. We also had to show others where to ride their bikes so they wouldn't use the hill above the creek any more. We hope that the fence lasts through the winter time. We may have to keep reminding people to stay off the area. Just last week, someone tried to go through it an pushed the fence down in one place. We will be watching them!

Share

The class learned that by finding a problem in their own school, they could help make an environmental impact. I guided the class through the project by structuring a six-week timeline to complete the project; I assigned roles to my students so that they felt a sense of ownership, but also ensured my students collaborated and worked as a class. We spent about 2 hours a week on the project. Our team was able to make a noticeable impact on the creek in the back of our school and we found that our efforts were successful. Our greatest challenge will be making sure no one damages our fence or destroys the vegetation that we planted. We are looking forward to tackling this next challenge!

Energy Use

Learn

Problem: When we walk through the halls, we noticed that a lot of empty classrooms have their lights on. That is a lot of energy being wasted! We also noticed that a couple of times, we also forgot and left our class lights on when we went somewhere.

Our building services manager, Mr. Meinckle, said that when you leave classroom lights on for an hour, it uses up as much energy as if you left a radio on for two whole days! He said that if everyone left the lights on, it could cost the school over $1000 in electric bills every year! We also found out that our energy comes from a power plant that burns coal. Even though they clean the smoke, it still releases carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the air. CO₂ is one of the main reasons why there is global warming. We can help reduce that if we use less electricity.

Mr. Mienckle said that the school burns oil to heat the building and to get hot water. That means that very little electricity is used to heat the school. Most of the electricity is used for lighting and running equipment like televisions and computers.

We also read a passage that told us about energy vampires. These are things like computers and some televisions that use power even when they are turned off. We found out that if you have a power strip with a switch, you can turn it off and it stops the electricity from going through to the energy vampires. So the solution is to either unplug the vampires or cut off their power. We like stopping vampires!

Plan

We decided that we need to convince everyone to be careful about using too much electricity. We are making up posters for every classroom to remind them to turn off the lights when they leave. Also, they can turn off the lights if there is sunshine coming in the window. We plan to have a team go around at the end of each day and check to see that lights are off and to cut off power to their energy vampires. We will also design a flyer to send home to get people to turn off their lights when they are not using them.

We will measure how well we have done by finding out the amount of electricity used in September. Then we will begin to have everyone reduce the use of electricity in October and find out how much electricity is used by the school that month. We plan to continue to monitor the use of electricity for the rest of the school year.

Act

For the month of September, the school used 15,233 kilowatts of electricity.

We used paper that prints large badges in our printer to make small signs that go over every light switch in the building. These remind people to turn off the lights. We wrote a speech, practiced it and sent two students to each classroom to explain why it is important to conserve energy and to turn off lights in the classroom and unplug things that aren't being used.

We took turns as end-of-day monitors, who go through each room at the end of the day to be sure that the lights are off and the computers, printers, and other vampires have their electricity cut off. As students go on tasks from our classroom, we're always on the lookout for empty rooms with the lights on.

Reflect & Extend

We are proud to report that our effort was successful. In October, the school used only 14,199 kilowatt hours. That's a great reduction. We think we can do even better in November because people still haven't gotten into the habit of turning off lights and cutting power off at night. We also noticed rooms that had their lights on even when the sunshine was coming through the window.

We think we might have gotten more students to help us participate if we had offered a contest. So we are going to offer a monthly energy award for classes that always have their lights off when we check and that always have their electricity vampires cut off at night. The local electrical power company is giving us stickers to give to the students in the class that wins the award.

Share

I am proud of the accomplishments of my class. We learned that by influencing our peers, we could decrease our energy costs and the environmental effects of energy use. Each student in my class was responsible for making posters and flyers that we distributed to other classes in the school and students to take home. Our greatest success was showing how we greatly helped to reduce energy consumption within the school. Our biggest challenge was not getting everyone in the school to participate in our efforts. However, we will continue to spread the word about reducing our energy use.

Materials Use

Learn

Problem: We use too much paper. Last year, our school used over 2,000 boxes of copy paper. Another type of paper that is used too much is notebook paper. Also, different information papers go home all the time. We recycle paper at our school, and that's better than throwing it away. But we learned that it is better to reduce and reuse than to have to recycle. Recycling takes energy and costs more.

We did some research and found out that the amount of copy paper used at our school in one year is the same as killing 100 trees. Trees are important. They give us oxygen, provide shade and reflect sunlight back into space too keep the planet cool. Their roots hold on to soil. We need trees.

The building manager also helped us research our school's recycled paper for five days. There were lots of different kinds of paper in it. We decided to only look at the copy paper and writing paper. We classified the paper into categories. Paper completely used on both sides, paper used only on one side, paper use on no sides, paper that was thrown away as extra copies. Our data chart shows the results.

Recycled Paper Record

First Week Check

In summary, of the first week's recycled paper, only 55% was used completely. 35% was used on one side only. 4% had nothing written on it - a complete waste! And 6% was extra copies from a handout where too many were printed.

Plan

We will be showing the rest of the school how wasteful it is to use too much paper and not to use it completely. We would like to see a school that has no wasted paper in the paper recycling bin. We plan to talk with teachers at a staff meeting. We will also visit each class and explain what kids can do to reduce the amount of paper being used.

We will check the paper recycling bin once a week and keep a record of the number of pieces of paper that could have been used more or that were printed and not used using the categories we made. We plan to find out if people will improve their reuse of paper and put less into the recycling bins.

Act

A group of four students from our class prepared a presentation for the teachers and we got permission to present to them at a staff meeting on Monday afternoon. We explained what we had found and that we want to see if we can improve. One of the teachers said that there were sometimes good reasons to have only one side used - like a test paper that should not be seen by anyone else. They said that most test papers go home with students, but that we should be extra careful if we find any. We promised not to read anyone's paper, but just to count them. A teacher will be with us when we count the recycled papers.

Two students from our class went to each classroom in the school and showed ways to save and reuse paper. One-sided papers that are not tests should have the first side crossed out in pencil and placed in a special bin where they can be reused. Notebook paper should be used on both sides.

We posted a notice in the copy room reminding everyone to only copy exactly the number that you will need and not to make extras.

We went every Friday afternoon with our teacher to count the recycled paper and record how much of each category was in the bin. We recorded the results and put the numbers on a table. We then used the table to create a graph of the results.

See the table and graphs attached.

Recycled Paper Totals

Our project was successful. See our tables and graphs for the data.

We saw the amount of paper being used on just one side drop from

34% of the total amount recycled to 8.6% of the total amount. The amount of unused paper dropped to less than 1 percent. The percentage of paper with 2 sides used went up to almost 90%.

One thing that we learned was that not all paper that is covered on one side can be used again. For example, tests have private information on them. So any paper with private information can be recycled. Often these are shredded so that no one can read them again.

We also learned that students in other classes will help us, if they like the idea. We learned that you have to get them on your side to solve the problem.

We found out that some people are confused about what can be recycled. In our study, we only looked at copy paper. But people also recycled newspaper, different kinds of cardboard, and paper bags. The building manager said those are all allowed, but sometimes people throw in paper with plastic attached or paper like napkins or paper plates that are oily. Those have to be removed because they will ruin the recycling process. There are many things we could have had people do with newspapers and cardboard - but that will be for next year.

Reflect & Extend

Our project was successful. See our tables and graphs for the data.

We saw the amount of paper being used on just one side drop from

34% of the total amount recycled to 8.6% of the total amount. The amount of unused paper dropped to less than 1 percent. The percentage of paper with 2 sides used went up to almost 90%.

One thing that we learned was that not all paper that is covered on one side can be used again. For example, tests have private information on them. So any paper with private information can be recycled. Often these are shredded so that no one can read them again.

We also learned that students in other classes will help us, if they like the idea. We learned that you have to get them on your side to solve the problem.

We found out that some people are confused about what can be recycled. In our study, we only looked at copy paper. But people also recycled newspaper, different kinds of cardboard, and paper bags. The building manager said those are all allowed, but sometimes people throw in paper with plastic attached or paper like napkins or paper plates that are oily. Those have to be removed because they will ruin the recycling process. There are many things we could have had people do with newspapers and cardboard - but that will be for next year.

Share

My class has worked hard to reduce the amount of paper wasted and they have been very successful in doing so. Students learned that it is better to reduce the amount of paper used and to reuse paper, because recycling paper can be expensive and use energy. My entire class participated; some students made presentations, others collected and tracked our data. Our group was very successful in encouraging our school to use 2 sides of paper. Our greatest challenge was conveying the types of items that can be recycled versus not be recycled. We will address this issue in a project next year.