GreenSchools for Early Childhood

Project Learning Tree’s GreenSchools for Early Childhood program specifically is designed to teach young children about their environment and how they can make a difference, while developing their skills in language, mathematics, and science.

To access the materials, visit https://www.plt.org/green-schools-early-childhood and login or create an account (it’s free).

The Educator Guide offers ideas and activities for early childhood educators to green their centers while facilitating environmental experiences with their students through art, movement, sensory exploration, and time outdoors – all of which are inherently appealing to young children. You’ll learn about the benefits of becoming a PLT GreenSchool, how to engage parents at your center, ways to assess your students’ learning and how to celebrate your success. 

Five Investigations will involve your students in helping to green your center while developing their skills in language, mathematics, science, and more. Explore what individual and collective actions you and your students can take to improve the health, safety, and environmental quality of your school or early childhood center. You'll discover how reducing your school's environmental footprint is not only good for your health, your children’s health, and the health of the environment, but also can save your school money. 

• Energy: Investigate how much energy your center uses, the main sources of that energy and ways to implement energy-saving strategies.
• Environmental Quality: Investigate areas where improvements can be made in indoor and outdoor air quality, in your centers carbon dioxide and temperature levels, how cleaning products can impact your air quality and what practices need to be followed regarding the use of hazardous materials.
• School Site: Investigate natural habitats, wildlife, trees, grounds maintenance practices and ways to make improvements to your center’s site.
• Waste and Recycling: Investigate how much waste your center generates and where it goes, as well as recycling and composting efforts.
• Water: Investigate the source, cost, and quality of your school's water supply and ways to enhance current water conservation practices.

Each GreenSchools for Early Childhood investigation includes:

• Background information for educators and a checklist of supplies needed
• Early Childhood Engagement activities to involve your learners in the investigation
• Early Learner Worksheets
• Action project ideas, including a My Action Plan worksheet for children ages 4 to 8
• A Green Your Home handout to extend the learning and help families learn how they can improve their home environment.

PLT Seeks K-2 Teachers to Review New Science Unit

Project Learning Tree is seeking Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 classroom teachers to review a new, online instructional unit for students at these grade levels. The K-2 unit, called Treemendous Science!, will invite students (and their teachers) to explore, experience, observe, and collect tree data to develop understandings about how trees grow, roles they play in ecological systems, and the ways in which trees and humans interact.

K-2 classroom teachers interested in reviewing PLT’s new Treemendous Science! unit this summer are invited to complete a brief application at http://pltpilot.org by May 31, 2016.

 

Accepted K-2 practitioners will be asked to review the draft Treemendous Science! unit for their specific grade level (Kindergarten, Grade 1, or Grade 2). You will be asked about certain common unit components (such as unit introduction, teacher background, learning centers, and green schools connections), as well as the customized age-level specific instructional content.

Selected practitioners will not be asked to field test any of the content, rather they will be asked to read, review, and respond to detailed questionnaires. Stipends are available for all accepted selected K-2 participants, based upon the successful completion of all project components. 

National PLT will confirm teacher participants in June, and the review period will last approximately 6-8 weeks immediately following (approximately July – August). Classroom teachers of Grades K-2 will be given priority.

Treemendous Science! is truly novel in its approach, as it was constructed around—rather than correlated to—targeted Performance Expectations within the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

NGSS Performance Expectations
Created for kindergarten to second grade classrooms, Treemendous Science! is built around the following NGSS Performance Expectations:

• K-LS1-1 – From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes.  Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.
• K-ESS2-1 – Earth’s Systems.  Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time. 
• 1-ESS-1-2 – Earth’s Place in the Universe. Make observations at different times of year to relate the amount of daylight to the time of year.
• 2-PS1-1 – Matter and its Interactions.  Plan and conduct an investigation to describe and classify different kinds of materials by their observable properties.
• 2-LS4-1 – Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity. Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.

 

 

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