Exploring the Biosphere (3 of 3)

Welcome to Change is Simple’s Online Learning Platform!

Overview: Today is a review of this unit’s information that was covered in the previous two lessons. Access to those two lessons is at the bottom of this page. Today’s activity is a set of questions through a form that is based on the topics from the 2 previous lessons.

Grade Level: 2-4

Theme: Earth Systems

Supervision needed? No

Essential Questions: 

Materials Needed:

Standards:

Today’s Activity:

This week we covered topics surrounding the atmosphere and the hydrosphere. We’d love for you to complete this reflection through Google Forms as today’s activity.

Not sure what we talked about on Monday and Wednesday? Here’s a refresher!

Monday

Wednesday

Change is Simple will have lessons on next week on Wednesday and Friday. Enjoy the weekend!

Did you enjoy today’s activity? Stay tuned for more, and in the meantime…

Send us a photo of yourself doing today's activity and if you would like, please share your name(s) and where you are from with cisonline@changeissimple.org

Reducing Waste (3 of 3)

Welcome to Change is Simple’s Online Learning Platform!

Overview: Today is a review of this unit’s information that was covered in the previous two lessons. Access to those two lessons is at the bottom of this page. Today’s activity is a set of questions through a form that is based on the topics from the 2 previous lessons.

Grade Level: K-6

Theme: Waste Reduction

Supervision needed? No

Essential Questions: 

Materials Needed:

Standards:

Today’s Activity:

This week we covered a few ways that we could reduce our waste production. We’d love for you to complete this reflection through Google Forms as today’s activity.

If you can’t access the page above, click on the link below to take you to the Google Form directly!

Not here on Monday or Wednesday? Here’s a refresher!

Check out these videos to get a sense of what we talked about.

Monday

Wednesday

Did you enjoy today’s activity? Stay tuned for more, and in the meantime…

Send us a photo of yourself doing today's activity and if you would like, please share your name(s) and where you are from with cisonline@changeissimple.org

Renewable Energy Sources (3 of 3)

Welcome to Change is Simple’s Online Learning Platform!

Overview: Today we are going to be wrapping up our renewable energy lessons! Today you will learn all about wind power and then do an activity where you will build a wind turbine at home!

Grade Level: 4-6

**For younger students, ask a friend at home for assistance!

Theme: Energy Conservation

Supervision needed? No

Essential Questions: 

• What does renewable energy mean?

• How does wind power work?

Materials Needed:

• Recyclable items found on your home!

• Tape or glue

• Scissors

• Pencil

• Pin or tack

Standards:

Review

We learned a lot of information about our renewable energy sources and why they are so important from the two previous lessons. Let’s see how much you can recall! Answer the following questions before continuing.

Question 1: Define renewable energy source.

Question 2: What are fossil fuels?

Question 3: What types of structures/machines/technology works to help us harness energy from the sun and water?

Activity

In this activity, Change is Simple challenges you to get creative and make a wind turbine out of recyclable materials you have in your home! This means yours will be personalized and unique based on the materials you choose.

Materials:

• Recyclable items found on your home!

• Tape or glue

• Scissors

• Pencil

• Pin or tack

*** Depending on the material you have available, the activity instructions and material list might not match so get creative with how you make yours!

Step 1: Locate and clean recyclable items of choice.

Make sure they are washed and ready to use!

Step 2: Brainstorm what design you can make out of your materials.

Parts:

• Stand / tower

• Blades

Try to think about what items you have that would be best for each.

Step 3: Using the material you chose for the blades, draw and cut the shapes you will use for the turbine.

Be sure to have all the blades connected in the center for the next step.

Fold the blades down as pictured. This will help the blades catch the wind and rotate!

***The blade shape pictured are modeled after the standard shape for wind turbines used in real life, but many different shapes will work for this activity. Try experimenting with different shapes to see if it will work!

Step 4: Poke a hole through the center of your blades using the pin or tip of pencil.

The blades should fit loosely in the hole made so that they can rotate.

Step 5: Using the extra material from your blades, cut a piece of material in the pictured shape and fold.

This will be used to connect your blades to your stand!

*If you need to make your stand by folding, cutting, or constructing do that before this step!

Step 6: Poke a hole through the very top triangle and attach it to your stand using glue or tape.

Step 7: Reassemble the turbine by putting the blades on the tack and attaching it to the stand.

Leave room between the stand and the end of the tack (as pictured) so that the blades can spin.

Step 8: And done, you made a wind turbine! Place it in front of a fan, wind source, or blow on the turbine blades to see it in action!

*** Yours will most likely look different than the activity example depending on the materials you have available and that is totally awesome and encouraged! We would love to see the design you come up with!

Reflection

Awesome job this week! Here are some important take aways from this week’s lessons:

• Renewable energy sources are those which will never run out or be depleted and are healthy for the environment.

• Renewable energy is energy harnessed naturally from the environment (sun, water, wind).

• Using renewable and clean energy sources prevents pollution and excess carbon dioxide emissions.

• Renewable energy sources replace the use of burning fossil fuels which are harmful to the environment.

Making the transition to clean energy sources that benefit not only us, but the planet is what will help make our future a brighter place. The use of solar panels and hydropower turbines to power our energy grid lowers our carbon footprint (the level of carbon dioxide emissions we are responsible for) and the amount of pollution we produce. This is because when we are using clean energy we are not burning fossil fuels and polluting the environment. When there is less pollution and carbon dioxide in the air, our environment is healthier and so are we! If something has harmful effects on environment, it probably isn’t beneficial to our health either.

With today’s technological advancements, the transition to renewable energy has never been easier. This hopefully means we will be transitioned to clean energy sources in no time! But to do so, we all need to do our part in understanding why is important to use renewable energy sources and begin to take actions to help the environment in our daily lives. See how many answers you can brainstorm to the following questions!

1. Why is it important to use clean and renewable energy?

2. What does a healthy environment look like to you?

3. What are the benefits of having a clean environment to live in?

4. What actions can you start taking today to reduce your impact and help the environment?

Did you enjoy today’s activity? Stay tuned for more, and in the meantime…

Send us a photo of yourself doing today's activity and if you would like, please share your name(s) and where you are from with cisonline@changeissimple.org

Watersheds

Welcome to Change is Simple’s Online Learning Platform!

Overview: In this activity, students will create a watershed using a piece of paper and coloring materials. Students will follow along to an instructors direction to learn what is a watershed, and what you may find in one. After creating the watershed, students will conduct an experiment to understand where water travels through a watershed after a rainstorm. This lesson will highlight how water brings pollution from roads, construction zones, farms and residential areas into our lakes, streams, and oceans. 

Theme: Water pollution, natural resources

Grade Level: 2-5

Supervision needed? No

Essential Questions:

• What is a watershed?

• How does pollution travel though and enter a watershed?

• How does pollution impact a watershed?

Materials Needed:

• Paper

• Coloring utensils

• Spray bottle with water

Standards

• 3-LS4-4. Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals that live there may change.

• 2-ESS2-1. Compare multiple solutions designed to slow or prevent wind or water from changing the shape of the land.*

• K-2-ETS1-2. Develop a simple sketch, drawing, or physical model to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem.

Background:

What is a watershed?

A watershed is an area or ridge of land that separates the flow of water to different rivers, streams, and lakes. All of the water that falls over a watershed will flow to the same basins (lakes and ponds). When rain falls, or snow melts, that water travels downhill over dirt, roads, and farms carrying whatever it comes in contact with. That means that the water collects and carries pollution to nearby lakes and oceans!

What is pollution?

Pollution is any substance or item that is harmful to the environment it is in. Water pollution takes many different shapes. If rainfall or snowmelt travels over a farm, it can collect fertilizers from the soil and carry them to lakes and oceans. This fertilizer can harm aquatic life. Similarly, oil from cars on the road can harm aquatic life if it gets carried to oceans, lakes. etc.

student led experiment

Activity Duration: 15 Minutes

Materials Needed:

1. One sheet white paper

2. Assorted Markers

3. Spray bottle with water

Step 1: Set up experiment.

Crumple up a sheet of white paper with both hands, and then lay out and semi-flatten.

Color the ridges of your watershed in purple.

To create the towns in your watershed, draw three small towns (red) at three places in the valleys of your watershed. (A valley is a low point of land between mountains).

Next, draw a large city (orange) close to one of the towns. The towns and city are locations in our watershed where we often find large amounts of oil on roads from cars, and pollution from people.

Next, draw four farms (green) in different flat places throughout the watershed. Most farmers use fertilizers to help their crops (fruits and vegetables) grow! These fertilizers are helpful for the farms, but harmful if they end up in our waterways, causing a dangerous process called eutrophication. To learn more about eutrophication, click here!

Finally, draw a coal mine (black) near one of the cities. Coal is a major fossil fuel. The process of mining coal from the earth usually contaminates nearby waters with highly acidic water and metals. To learn more about the process of coal mining , click here!

Step 2: Create your hypothesis.

Soon, you are going to take your spray bottle or pipet and create rainfall over your watershed. Before you do this, you must make a hypothesis as to what will happen when you conduct this experiment!

Question 1: Where will the precipitation end up after the storm ends?

Question 2: What will happen to the pollution that comes from the coal mine, farms, and cities/roads?

Step 4: Create a rainstorm over your watershed!

Take your spray bottle and start to spray water on all areas of your watershed. Carefully observe the changes that occur. Be creative! You can make certain areas heavy rainfall areas and others lighter areas to observe the differences. Record your observations on a sheet of paper (pictures or words!)

Step 5: Reflection

1. Was your hypothesis (guess) from step 3 accurate?

2. What happened to the bodies of water after a serious rainstorm occurred over the cities and farms?

3. How could this runoff impact our watershed?

Now that you have completed this experiment, you hopefully understand that when it rains, pollution travels from our major towns and cities, farms, and industrial areas into our rivers, lakes, streams, and oceans. This can harm animals that live in the water and prevent humans from having clean drinking water. Let’s brainstorm some ways that we can help protect our watersheds from pollution!

The Change is Simple team has come up with three ways to help you get started:

Ride your bike or walk instead of riding in a car! The less we drive, the less oil ends up on our roads.

Pick up trash, even if it’s not yours! The best place for trash is in your trash bin, NOT outside where it can blow into our waterways!

Support local farmers that use little or no fertilizers! The less fertilizers used, the less that ends up in our oceans.

Stay tuned for more activities! In the meantime, send us a photo of yourself doing today's activity and if you would like to share your name(s), and where you are from to cisonline@changeissimple.org