Recycling Read Alouds and STEM Challenges
The following is a guest post from Dr. Jacie Maslyk.
One important part about STEM education is thinking about sustainability and being a positive global citizen. When we teach students about the intersection between science, technology, engineering, and math there are many opportunities to include conversations around reusing, repurposing, and recycling.
This post will share a variety of children’s books that shine a spotlight on the importance of recycling and the opportunities for reusing and repurposing materials. The books will show different examples for recycling in action while also giving students ideas to potential recycling projects they might take on.
Kenya’s Art
Kenya’s school is on spring break and their teacher asked them to write a report about how they spent their time. She feels like she hasn't done anything worth noting so her and her dad visit a museum's recycling exhibit. As they walk home through her neighborhood with her dad, she is inspired to use her old, broken toys and other items to make art with her family. Together, they use their imaginations to come up with new inventions from old things. Then Kenya teaches her whole class how to recycle items and repurpose them into something great!
Challenge:
Our April Read Aloud Menu shares other spring STEM-themed books. The menus offer different read aloud selections with a menu of activities to engage students in the 4 Cs communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. Kenya’s Art is one of the featured books for the month of April. It includes eight different challenge ideas to use with the book.
A House For Every Bird
The story follows a little girl as she creates drawings of birds and birdhouses. At first, her creative process is straightforward, matching each bird to a home that shares some similar characteristics. She has drawn different houses for her bird friends, but the birds decide they might want to swap houses. The little girl learns a lot about listening and asking questions, as this story shows that the best way to know what someone likes is just to ask. The book offers a deeper message, asking if it is possible that you just can’t tell a bird by its feathers.
Challenge:
After reading this clever, rhyming story, students will be motivated to make their own unique birdhouse. Engage your students with this Birdhouse recycling activity. In this STEM project, students collect and build a birdhouse from various recyclables. To add a math twist, students must use money to budget how much of each item to purchase before designing and building their birdhouse. (We included multiple options for the budgeting worksheet for easy differentiation!)
Board Game Day
Have you ever hosted a Board Game Day? Whether at home or at school, board games are a fun way to bring people together. This rhyming book written by Ambie Valdes is all about the fun of having a day just to play. The book follows a group of friends (two pandas, a cat, a bird, and an octopus) as they prepare for and have a board game day. The illustrations include many actual children's board games that your students may recognize.
Challenge:
Not only will students enjoy playing board games, but they might also enjoy designing and creating their own. Using cardboard and other recyclables, students can work together to construct a game. This Build a board game challenge is the perfect extension activity after sharing this book.
Games can focus on topics of interest or may have a curricular connection. Student board games can provide a review for ELA concepts like nouns and verbs or the comprehension of a story. Games could reinforce math facts or features of geometric shapes. They could also highlight areas that students are studying in science and social studies.
Galimoto
A young boy named Kondi lives in Africa. When he sees the other children in his village playing with toys, he wants a toy, too. He decides to make a galimoto, a toy vehicle. There aren’t a lot of resources in his village. He finds some wire in his shoebox of treasures, but he needs more materials. Kondi heads out on a search to find more items for his toy. He visits a local shop run by his uncle, who gives him some wires. He gets some additional wires from old motor parts from a miller. He trades items with a girl playing on a hill. Kondi is persistent and finally accumulates enough materials to make his galimoto.
Challenge:
After reading about Kondi’s creativity, students will want to design galimotos or toys or their own. In this Build a toy challenge, students will consider the recyclable materials available and design their own toy. Inspired by Kondi, their design might include wires or materials from other items or even from broken toys.
Those Darn Squirrels
This hilarious book follows the interactions between Old Man Fookwire and the squirrels in his yard. He loves bird watching so he builds some bird feeders and fills them with yummy seeds and berries. The squirrels in his yard are taking the goodies out of the feeders. What will he do about those darn squirrels?
Challenge:
Not only can students build squirrel deterrents, they can also create their own bird feeders. Using plastic recyclables like water bottles or milk jugs, students can design their own outdoor feeders. Then they can research what to put in their feeders, place them around the school, and observe the types of birds who visit.
All of these books show how items can be recycled and reused in different ways. Each book will inspire students to do some recycling of their own, finding ways to solve real-world problems. Recycling old items or items thought to be “garbage” can help the environment and reduce the amount of trash that we produce. Through our hands-on STEM challenges, students can continue their thinking about the environment and engage in ways to recycle in their home, school, or neighborhood.
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An educator for the last 23 years, Dr. Jacie Maslyk, has served as a classroom teacher, reading specialist, elementary principal, and assistant superintendent. She is the author of STEAM Makers: Fostering Creativity and Innovation in the Elementary Classroom, Connect to Lead: Power Up Your Learning Network to Move Your School Forward (ISTE), Remaking Literacy: Innovative Instructional Strategies for Maker Learning and Unlock Creativity: Opening a World of Imagination With Your Students. You can read more on her blog, Creativity in the Making, at www.jaciemaslyk.blogspot.com. Connect with Jacie on Twitter @DrJacieMaslyk or email her at jaciemaslyk@gmail.com .