Earth Day Resources
Kids love exploring the world around them, and Earth Day offers a great way to introduce them to environmental science and engineering. The following sampler includes activities, lessons, and resources that promote green engineering and science learning.
Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, K-12 Outreach Programs, Lesson Plans, Special Features, Web Resources | Comments Off on Earth Day Resources
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In this activity, teams of middle school students express their creativity while learning the fundamentals of engineering design, sustainability, and the basic physics of forces and motion by building a vehicle out of recycled trash that is capable of transporting liquid over rough terrain with as little spillage as possible.
The world wastes 1.4 billion tons of food annually, with the average American chucking out 250 pounds’ worth. Designers, engineers, and even restaurants are shrinking that global garbage heap with innovations ranging from “smart” food packaging to urban composting. 
In this activity, teams of students in grades 5 to 7 learn about environmental, civil, and sanitation engineering by designing and building model landfills that hold the most garbage, minimize costs, and prevent trash and contaminated “rainwater” from polluting the nearby “city.” Teams test their landfills, and graph and compare designs for capacity, cost, and performance. 
Tech Challenge 2011, sponsored by 
Student teams use the engineering design process to create a useful product of their choice out of recyclable items and “trash.” The class is given a “landfill” of reusable items and allowed a limited amount of bonding materials. The activity addresses the importance of reuse and encourages students to look at ways they can reuse items they would normally throw away. Students are further prompted to consider the problems with growing landfills, and efforts by engineers and others to reduce pollution, emissions, and trash production.
From helping impoverished trash workers in Argentina to transforming the way Canadian engineering students learn, Caroline Baillie has been a tireless champion of fostering social justice through engineering, challenging her colleagues and students to make ethics a core concern in their work.
