Guide Entry 97.07.03

Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute

You Can Change the World, by Francine C. Coss

Guide Entry to 97.07.03:

The quality of our environment is directly linked to our efforts to maintain and replenish utilized resources. Adults and children alike tend to forget the ramifications a single non-caring individual has on their local and global environments. My unit is designed to enlighten young and old members of my surrounding school community to the positive and negative effects each of us can have upon the environment.

This unit focuses on the positive efforts my kindergarten students will make in their local community by altering the existing environment through clean-up efforts and organic community gardening. The children will integrate their existing study of animal life and ecosystems with the study of the physical environment surrounding their school. Working with the land in and around the school facility, the children will also begin their study of plant life to coincide with their continued study of ecosystems and environment. The children will be educated in the areas of relative plant and animal life, natural pesticides, and animal homes. The information gathered throughout the unit’s lessons and projects will be collected in multiple HyperStudio¨ stacks, allowing for future reference by my kindergartners and other students.

An organic community vegetable garden will also be planted and maintained, following the same concepts of environmental awareness as learned through past projects. The concept of ecosystems will be revisited on a larger scale as humans are directly involved in the consumption of the garden’s produce.

(Recommended for Elementary Science and Computer, grades K-5)

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