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PlayOwl

Science · Grade 5

Design for Environmental Stewardship

In this capstone course, learners act as environmental engineers for a fictional school. They combine information about how human activities affect land, water, air and living things and how communities use science to protect them. Then they define a stewardship problem (too much cafeteria waste going to the landfill), analyze a waste audit, compare solutions with criteria and constraints, and recommend a plan backed by data and honest tradeoffs.

  • 3 lessons
  • About 110 minutes
  • Environmental stewardship check: 9 questions
  • Ways to answer: choose an answer, highlight a text, match pairs, type a number, put in order and sort into groups
See plans Included with Family, Teacher and School plans. Open in PlayOwl

What learners will discover

  • Combine information about how human activities affect Earth's systems and how communities use science ideas to protect resources and the environment.
  • Define a design problem for protecting a resource, including criteria and constraints.
  • Use data to compare solutions, test their effects and recommend a solution with evidence and tradeoffs.

Lessons

  1. Human impacts and community solutions 5 steps3 practiceabout 34 min
  2. Define the problem with data 5 steps3 practiceabout 36 min
  3. Compare, test and recommend 8 steps4 practiceabout 40 min
  4. Environmental stewardship check 9 questions at the end

Keep exploring

Games to practice with

  • Marble MountainLay straights, curves, drops and splitters to roll marbles down the mountain.
  • Bridge LabBuild a bridge from beams, brace it with triangles, and stay on budget.
  • Circuit Workshop 3DWire up batteries, bulbs and switches on a 3D workbench.

More 5th grade science

Guide for grown-ups