Environmental Curricula Handbook: Tools in Your Schools

This handbook is designed to provide teachers and other educators with guidance on how to teach students about environmental issues related to air, water, and soil quality. It provides information to help educators incorporate environmental education into the classroom. The handbook is organized as follows: Chapter 2: How Do EMPACT Programs Work in Schools discusses why environmental education is important, how to incorporate the lessons and ideas highlighted in this handbook into age-appropriate curricula, and how to identify quality environmental education materials; Chapter 3: Teaching the Teacher - How Do I Make an EMPACT on My Students? provides background information on air, water, and soil and why we should be concerned about the quality of these substances; Chapter 4: Air-Based Projects covers the air-based EMPACT projects and their curriculum components; Chapter 5: Water-Based Projects covers the water-based EMPACT projects and their curriculum components; Chapter 6: Land-Use and Soil-Based Projects covers the land- and soil-based EMPACT projects and their curriculum components. This handbook can assist educators in designing lesson plans and activities to teach the principles of environmental science. It highlights a host of EMPACT projects that have developed or are developing curricula or other classroom materials to foster student learning. The highlighted projects cover a variety of grade levels (see Appendix C: Activities by Grade Level). Therefore, this handbook can be used by any teacher, from kindergarten through grade 12. In addition, college-level materials have been developed for some projects. Moreover, in most cases, the activities and lessons geared towards one particular grade can easily be adapted for others. Teachers and educators can review the project descriptions and read about the activities, lesson plans, and tools they employ to develop ideas for their own classrooms. In addition, the handbook includes resources and contact information and in some cases a Web site where lesson plans and activities can be accesses directly. This handbook also references supplementary sources of information, such as Web sites, publications, organizations, and contacts, that can help the user find more detail guidance. (See Appendix A: Additional Resources).