RECYCLING

Memories of my elementary school experience would be incomplete without recalling our “bomb” drills. At the time, relationships between “Russia” and the United States were frigid, and there was a constant fear hanging over us of an atomic bomb threat. Rather than the typical fire drills today, we would practice monthly crouching under our desk tops (in case of shattered glass) or sitting on the floors in the hallways, behind big steel doors, with our knees brought up and our heads “safely” tucked in. It was difficult, under these circumstances, to not be fearful of whether one would be alive tomorrow, or develop a sense of helplessness-with neither input nor power in preventing such a horrendous event. However, as relations between the two super powers improved, the drills became obsolete. Still, for those of us who lived through it, that feeling of doom never leaves one’s soul.

Today, it is difficult for children to turn on the TV or open a newspaper without repeated threats of global warming, loss of habitats and natural resources, and true concerns about not only the future of oneself and one’s friends and family, but the whole human race as well. Knowledge of prior geological periods only increases one’s sense that our current climatic and environmental circumstances could change drastically in the future, making it impossible for living beings to survive. Talk about a feeling of doom!

In our 5th grade curriculum, a new winter science topic (“recycling”) has been added -- although there are no books, or set curricula activities, other than ensuring that the science GLE’s be followed As I prepare for this unit, I see it as perhaps one of the most valuable science lessons these students will ever have. For once, 5th graders are being presented with a problem, and being asked to seek solutions and life style changes that will maximize the health of their planet. While there is an enormous amount of information available about recycling today, time constraints necessitate creativeness in using limited classroom time to achieve maximal results.

As I share some of my own ideas, I hope other educators will chirp in with projects, www sites, ideas, books, or other activities they have done with their own classes to make this topic a valuable tool for their students, or to co-develop a with me.