You cannot go through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. - Jane Goodall
This volume is all about the ENVIRONMENT.
Challenge 1
What will you do to make the world a more beautiful place?
In the book Miss Rumphis, the character is challenged to do something to make the world more beautiful. How will you help our world?
First, watch a recording of Miss Rumphis by Barbara Cooney. How does the main character change over time? Listen for causes and effects and/or problems and solutions.
Use BrainPop to learn about different ways you can help make the world more beautiful. (In BrainPop, click on SCIENCE, and then select OUR FRAGILE ENVIRONMENT. Watch a few videos of your choice.)
Maybe you want to plant flowers, too. Maybe you want to make a difference in pollution so that our rivers are cleaner. Whatever you choose, write about your rationale. Why did you chose this environmental issue and what you will do about it to make a change in the world?
Create an informational commercial using Clips or Adobe Spark video to encourage others to help you make a difference in making the world more beautiful. Use facts from the BrainPop video to support your reasoning. Share it!
Challenge 3
Organize, represent, and interpret your lunch into data!
Before throwing your lunch away, sort it into categories: paper, plastic, aluminum, glass, compost, trash.
Tally how many you have of each item. Then, as a family, create a graph of all of the materials that were found in your lunch.
Which material was most commonly found in their lunches? Was this material recyclable? If not, can you generate a solution to minimize the trash in your lunch? Is there a place to throw recyclables and compost in their your home? What can you do about it?
Can you up-cycle the materials in your lunch that are not recyclable? Check out the picture. These pieces of trash were repurposed into a piece of art.
Can you up-cycle household materials into new things? Check out how young artists made Coke cans, bottles and caps into musical instruments.
Advanced math students: Do you think poorer nations emit more or less carbon dioxide per person? Use data from the World Bank to compare different countries’ carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Note: The directions ask for each student in a class to find the ratio of CO2 emissions of a country and compare. This may take a while on your own- use the data and spread this out throughout the week.
What conclusions can you draw from your inquiry?
Challenge 4
Did you know that there are 100 plants in Australia's forest that depend on one bird's POOP for seed dispersal? Some plants can't even grow without going through this giant bird's digestive system. This special bird is the Cassowary. And it is endangered. Learn more about this species of bird below.
Invasive species are one of the main reasons that cassowaries are in danger of becoming extinct. Sometime similar is happening in the US, but in a different way.
The Florida Everglades have been dealing with the growing threat of invasive species like Burmese pythons. The pythons are taking over the land and killing many of the native species.
Learn more about Food Webs here. You can select your reading level to customize the text. Then, think about it. How have invasive species disrupted food webs and ecosystems? Create a SKETCHNOTE poster to share the information you learned. Share it!
Credits:
Created with images by Unknown - "World Earth Globe · Free photo on Pixabay" • Unknown - "Hands holding small globe of earth image - Free stock ..." • Mercedes Mehling - "Lupines in Lubec, Maine" • Unknown - "Hands holding small globe of earth image - Free stock ..." • Markus Spiske - "Young boy looks into the future with binoculars field glasses." • Unknown - "Hands holding small globe of earth image - Free stock ..." • Jasmin Sessler - "Collected plastic during Community Cleanup at the local shoreline and harbourfront of Hamilton in Spring. Plastic is sorted by colour." • Unknown - "Hands holding small globe of earth image - Free stock ..." • Unknown - "Horned Bird Cassowary Blue · Free photo on Pixabay" • Unknown - "Hands holding small globe of earth image - Free stock ..."