Thursday Tutorial - Recycled Science Projects

When I was teaching Third Grade we always did this recyclable materials project since it went with the curriculum. We would often adopt the motto of 'Go Green' to cut down on paper waste and reuse materials. It's a great lesson for students to learn and I kind of missed that piece when I moved to Fourth.

But that shouldn't mean that students can't be exposed to the idea of recycling to help their environment, does it? This year, as I was printing out the directions for our Solar System project, I realized I could totally slip a little recycling in when it had never been before. I found the part in the parent instructions that told them not to think they had to spend a ton of money to recreate the planets and such and added in more suggestions about using recycled materials. I had crumpled up newspapers, bottle caps, and rolled up socks as ideas for making the solar system.

Some of my kids surprised me when they started complaining they didn't know how to create this project, or they didn't have anything recyclable at home. Are you kidding me??? We talked and discussed as a class and we heard from some of the those that had already started what they were finding to use in their projects.

The due date arrived for turning in this assignment and I was blown away. They really did an awesome job with this and reused a bunch of odds and ends to recreate the solar system. With a little forward thinking, we can all help save our planet, the third from the Sun.