Category Archives: Earth Day/Environment

What is Arbor Day?

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Glenda E. Fauske the Information and Education Coordinator / ND Forest Service at North Dakota State University in Bottineau, N.D. provided me with some excellent information on Arbor Day.

April 26 is the “national” Arbor Day. North Dakota’s Arbor Day is the first Friday in May. Each state has their own Arbor Day depending upon the planting season in their state. This year, however, ND is celebrating their State Arbor Day on May 17 at Annie’s House in Bottineau, N.D.  Click on the following links to learn more:

A Brief History of Arbor Day

N.D. Arbor Day Celebration

Arbor Days Across the Nation

Newspaper Activities from the NIE guide, A Plan for All Seasons written by Ann West and distributed by the NIE Institute.  

  • Work with a friend, a relative or a parent to clip pictures and names of trees from your newspaper over the period of a couple of weeks.  Clip photos from newspaper stories or advertisements; clip the names of trees, try to draw your own picture of how each tree appears.
  • Create a scrapbook of trees popular or commonly grown in your community.  Paste or tape pictures of different trees on different pages of your scrapbook and identify the type of tree you have selected.  If you clip names of trees, try to draw your own picture of how each tree appears.
  • Finally, try to find an example of a leaf from most of the types of trees you identified in your notebook.  Attach the leaf to the appropriate page.  If you can’t find a particular leaf, do some research and draw a sample leaf from the tree.
  • When you complete your scrapbook, add a page to the back of the scrapbook in which you describe any findings you and your partner made.  Include any final statements about your research and what you learned about trees in your community.

Free online Earth Day book

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Check out this free online Earth Day book made available by author Artie Knapp.

Living Green: A Turtle’s Quest for a Cleaner Planet - tired of seeing the land he loves cluttered with trash, Thurman the turtle decides it’s time to take action.

A shortlist finalist for the 2012 national Green Earth Book Award.

Click on the link below to access the book: 

http://www.mightybook.com/MightyBook_free/artie_knapp/living_green.html

 

Celebrate Earth Day with these Newspaper Activities

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Every day is Earth Day for people who care about the environment. But for one day each year, people all over the world join forces to call attention to the beauty of the Earth and the ways in which we can protect it.

Here are a number of activities to help you call attention to this special day.  These activities are from KRP’s Ultimate Holiday Activity Guide distributed by the NIE Institute.

1. Talk about environmental problems in your community. Have students find a newspaper story about one of those problems. Ask them how they would solve the problem, then have them write a letter to the editor of the newspaper expressing their thoughts.

2. Have students look through the newspaper’s advertisements for products that are promoted as environmentally friendly or safe for the environment. What conclusions can they draw from their findings? Encourage discussion.

3. Ask students to pick one product advertised in the newspaper and discuss the effects that product might have on the environment.

4. Instruct students to look through the newspaper for items that can be recycled. Ask them to list the items and find out if each can be recycled in your community. Conclude by having students come up with their own ways to recycle the newspaper (use as wrapping paper, line the bird cage, etc.). Encourage them to be creative.

A Curriculum Guide to Teach Environmental Education 

Click here to download the guide

Here is a 53 page guide you can download from the EGBAR Foundation titled “THE EGBAR Clean-Up Challenge.”  This curriculum was developed to help educators effectively and easily integrate environmental education into their classroom teaching. This curriculum guide covers a variety of environmental issues such as: sources of pollution, hazardous wastes, recycling, energy, renewable and non-renewable resources, global warming, and environmental laws. Each lesson is designed with a student objective, grade level recommendation, list of materials, discussion of teaching strategies for the lesson, and an opportunity to extend the lesson through additional activities. For each lesson there is an accompanying student activity sheet. The activity sheet is ready for you to copy and can be used as an independent assignment or cooperative learning activity.

Cool it: the good, the bad and what you can do about global warming

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Is there anything better than a warm, sunny day? All winter, we wait for the weather to warm up so we can throw off our sweaters and pull on our shorts. Warm days let us play in the parks and playgrounds, ride our bikes or head for the swimming pool.

But could our weather be getting too warm? Scientists think so. Environmental scientists and geoscientists study the Earth and its history. They measure and track all kinds of information so they can help us protect the environment. Scientists tell us what may happen in the future and give advice on taking care of our wonderful planet.

This NIE tab, Cool it: The Good, the Bad and What You Can Do About Global Warming was produced by KRP and distributed by the NIE Institute.

Download the tab by clicking here

Note: if you are going to print this pdf, you will need to adjust your print setting to fit on page. The pdf is bigger than 8.5 x 11 (normal print size.)

Check out this school year’s NIE supplement schedule!

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Welcome back to a new school year!  I am pleased to present our 2012-2013 NIE Supplement Schedule.  Newspapers in Education supplements or tabs are featured once, sometimes twice a month, during the school year in CLASSROOM COPIES ONLY of the Grand Forks Herald. Tabs deal with a variety of topics and age levels. They also include activities to be used with the newspaper. Topics this year include:  The constitution, the presidential election, anti-bullying, staying drug free, character education, veterans, careers and more!

To download the schedule, including instructions on how to order, click on the following link:  http://legacy.grandforksherald.com/pdfs/20122013NIE.pdf

 

 

Newspapers in Education Resource

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Check out the new Grand Forks Herald NIE Instructional Resources link on this blog!  You’ll find over 300 instructional resources including high quality teacher guides, serial stories, student supplements, bullying/character education materials, numerous subject-specific resources, video & audio teacher training modules, and the popular NIE Instructional Calendar.  There are even IWB files (Interactive White Boards) for some of the guides!

These resources address the research and standards based curriculum focus of schools and teachers. There are curriculum materials for every subject area and grade level.  All resources may be copied for classroom use or for homework assignments.  There are a few examples shown below: 

Super Science Day

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Check out SUPER SCIENCE DAY on Sunday, April 22, from 1-4 pm at Purpur Arena 1107 7th Ave S. in Grand Forks.  Super Science Day features hands-on science, technology, engineering and math activities for families with FREE admission.  The Scout Show featuring Boy Scout and Girl Scout activities will also be in the arena.

 

Earth Day Word Search

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Sunday, April 22 is Earth Day. The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970.  For more kid friendly information visit  http://holidays.kaboose.com/earth-day/history/earthday-history.html

Here is an Earth Day word search puzzle.  To download and print, click on the following link:  http://legacy.grandforksherald.com/pdfs/EARTH%20DAY%20WORD%20SEARCH%202012.pdf

Earth Day Activities Using the Newspaper

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Every day is Earth Day for people who care about the environment. But for one day each year, people all over the world join forces to call attention to the beauty of the Earth and the ways in which we can protect it.

Here are a number of activities to help you call attention to this special day.  These activities are from KRP’s Ultimate Holiday Activity Guide distributed by the NIE Institute.

1. Talk about environmental problems in your community. Have students find a newspaper story about one of those problems. Ask them how they would solve the problem, then have them write a letter to the editor of the newspaper expressing their thoughts.

2. Have students look through the newspaper’s advertisements for products that are promoted as environmentally friendly or safe for the environment. What conclusions can they draw from their findings? Encourage discussion.

3. Ask students to pick one product advertised in the newspaper and discuss the effects that product might have on the environment.

4. Instruct students to look through the newspaper for items that can be recycled. Ask them to list the items and find out if each can be recycled in your community. Conclude by having students come up with their own ways to recycle the newspaper (use as wrapping paper, line the bird cage, etc.). Encourage them to be creative.

A Curriculum Guide to Teach Environmental Education 

Click here to download the guide

Here is a 53 page guide you can download from the EGBAR Foundation titled “THE EGBAR Clean-Up Challenge.”  This curriculum was developed to help educators effectively and easily integrate environmental education into their classroom teaching. This curriculum guide covers a variety of environmental issues such as: sources of pollution, hazardous wastes, recycling, energy, renewable and non-renewable resources, global warming, and environmental laws. Each lesson is designed with a student objective, grade level recommendation, list of materials, discussion of teaching strategies for the lesson, and an opportunity to extend the lesson through additional activities. For each lesson there is an accompanying student activity sheet. The activity sheet is ready for you to copy and can be used as an independent assignment or cooperative learning activity.