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PLT Learning Guides
All persons attending PLT Educator and Facilitator Workshops receive PLT guides appropriate to the grade level with which they work.
PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide
Charting Diversity. Birds and Worms. Pollution Search. These are some of the 96 hands-on interdisciplinary activities in PLT's PreK-8 guide. The PreK-8 Guide covers such topics as water and air quality, ecology, urban environments, and recycling. The guide is designed to meet the common components of national education reform by using the constructivist approach to learning, whole language teaching, cooperative learning, problem solving, and authentic assessments. (more info on PLT website)
Secondary Modules
Exploring Environmental Issues: Places We Live
PLT’s new (2006) secondary module Exploring Environmental Issues: Places We Live connects students to the places they live so they will care about and influence the decisions being made about those places. Eight inquiry-based activities get students exploring their own neighborhoods, learning about their community’s development and appearance through time, and involved in local community action projects. For example, in the activity “Mapping Your Community Through Time” students use GIS data and aerial photographs of their community from past and present to analyze the changes in their community. (more info on the PLT website)
Exploring Environmental Issues: Focus on Forests
Exploring Environmental Issues: Focus on Forests secondary module uses forest related examples to help students better understand the complexity of environmental issues. Students examine issues objectively, collect and analyze data, and become involved in decision making experiences. They learn how to present arguments clearly and how citizens can play a role in forest management decisions. (more info on PLT website)
The Changing Forest: Forest Ecology
In The Changing Forest: Forest Ecology secondary module, students examine ecological systems of a forest, analyze interdependencies within a forest ecosystem, and explore factors that shape the development of forests. In addition, they develop critical thinking skills and discover the importance of scientific analysis when making decisions about forest issues. (more info on the PLT website)
Municipal Solid Waste
Through the Exploring Environmental Issues: Municipal Solid Waste module, students begin understanding waste management issues and options. The module uses hands-on experiences to show the interrelationships among waste generation, natural resource use, and disposal. The activities guide students through waste management strategies and solutions while providing the necessary tools to make informed decisions and choices on waste management issues. (more info on the PLT website)
Focus on Risk
Exploring Environmental Issues: Focus on Risk module helps students explore the different aspects of environmental and human health risks that affect their everyday lives. It incorporates science, social studies, math, geography, and language arts. The module is designed to be infused into existing curriculum and is correlated to the national science standards. (more info on PLT website)
Other Materials
GreenWorks! Guide
The GreenWorks! Connecting Community Action and Service Learning Guide is for educators who want to partner with a business, nonprofit, or other community organization on an environmental action project-and for the people in those organizations who want to partner with a local school. The guide also supports teachers who need to involve their students in service learning activities. (more info on the PLT website)
Other materials available on request include Introductory Handbook to the Secondary Modules. Student worksheets are available in Spanish, on request.
Additional secondary modules in Biodiversity (with the World Wildlife Fund) and Forests of the World (with the World Forestry Center) are under development.
PLT also has the Energy & Society curriculum available for purchase, as well as an extensive library of childrens literature and other materials that support PLT. Please view the online store!
