Christen: In Christen's 2nd grade classroom, she focused on incorporating sustainability topics throughout other subjects. For example, during reading, students learned about recycling by reading an article and then answering questions about the article. Next, students watched 2 videos on recycling: 1 about what happens after something is recycled and 1 video all about recycling. Then, students had an activity of sorting which items were recycable and which were not. Finally, in writing, students were given the writing prompt, "Do you think we should recycle at school and why?" Students were to answer the prompt using the sentence stems, "In my opinion, I think ________. I feel this way because _______." This way, students were able to practice their opinion writing, but also use the information learned about recycling as facts to help support their opinion. The students who were able to convince the school to recycle, became part of the "recycle club". Students were able to pick up trash and sort it in the correct bin. Additionally, on another day of class, we learned about the saltwater ocean habitat and students saw pictures of what happens when our trash ends up in the oceans.

Andrea: In Andrea's 4th grade classroom, she taught a two week unit on Earth's natural resources. This was an excellent opportunity for her to teach about the effects humans have on the environment. We learned about everything from renewable and nonrenewable energy sources, air pollution, water contamination, coal mining, to conservation and alternative energy resources. Students enjoyed doing hands-on activities and reading texts that showed them the effects of human choices on the planet. Students were even given the opportunity to come up with solutions on how to better their environmental impact.

The Washington Elementary School District does not currently have a mandatory recycling program across all schools. Any form of recycling must be started by an individual with a passion for it and the means and motivation to maintain it over the years. It is understood that not everybody will have the ability to incorporate a school-wide program for recycling, but we have some great ideas as to how we can teach students to recycle at home. Evelyn's plan was to start up a recycle club that would make it a school-wide initiative. Evelyn discovered that it may be difficult to maintain as a first year teacher, and a little too much to handle on top of everything so she settled for an in-class recycle bin. As a class, we had a discussion about what materials we would recycle in our class. As a way to engage the students, they would be extrinsically motivated each time they use the recycling bin instead of the trash. There is a chart by the bin where the students can update it with a stamp every time they use it.