City of Sunnyvale

Go Green Initiative: The Go Green Initiative is a simple, comprehensive program designed to create a culture of environmental responsibility on school campuses.
The Green Schools Initiative: The Green Schools Initiative was founded in 2004 and advocates that school boards and state policymakers develop comprehensive environmental action plans and build the local capacity to implement them.

Presentations & Field Trips

Environmental Volunteers provide hands-on classroom presentations and field-trips in the eight different natural science areas. Individual teachers must sign up in May preceding the school year in which they would like to request service.
Life Lab offers garden-based science field trips for 2nd-middle school grade students in the Garden Classroom on the UCSC Farm.
Sunnyvale Materials Recovery and Transfer (SMaRT®) Station Tours

Waste Reduction and Recycling Activities & Games

Can-it (Department of Conservation): A fun online game where you dodge obstacles to get a recyclable aluminum, glass or plastic beverage container to a recycling bin.

Climate Change Kids Site (EPA): Teaches kids about climate change and what they can do about it.

Climate Change Schools Site (EPA): Offers things you can do at school to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Earth 911: Offers resources for teachers and students including games and activities, quizzes, lesson plans and conservation songs.

Envelope Templates: Use the printable, online envelope templates to make fun envelopes out of old magazines or calendar pictures.

Environmental Kids Club (EPA): Interactive games that teach about environmental protection.
The Green Squad (Natural Resources Defense Council): Provides resources to help students evaluate the environmental health of their school and ways that they can improve it.
Students Page from the Office of Solid Waste (EPA): Provides great information on careers related to the environment and a waste information page for students.
The Adventures of Vermi the Worm: An interactive game that teaches 8-10 year-olds about waste management concepts by following Vermi through the school garden.
Planet Protectors Club for Kids (EPA): This site features extensive gaming, activities, reading materials, coloring books, and comic strips for children up to age 12.
RecycleWorks Kids: Activities, games and resources which help kids make the connections between nature and the things they use every day.
Waste-free School Lunches: Find information to participate in or to start a waste-free lunch program at your school.
The Worm Guide: A Vermicomposting Guide for Teachers: Includes activities (pp. 16-27) like creating a worm biography, worm story (ad-lib style), and worm picture book.
Recycle City: A fun, interactive look at what an entire city can do to reduce, reuse and recycle. Explore Recycle City to see what the folks are doing to reduce waste and make the environment better. Also includes an interactive game in which you are the mayor of Dumptown. Your goal as mayor is to change Dumptown to Recycle City!
The "Recycle" Card Game
Recycle Fun: Use online controls to place materials in the correct recycling bins.
The Ring Leader Recycling Program: A free environmental education program that involves recyclable six-pack rings and the Three R's -- Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. It is designed to allow students to learn about and participate in an effective school recycling program. After you join the Ring Leader Recycling Program, you will receive a FREE kit containing a tree, Teacher's Activity Guide, video, and information on returning the rings for recycling (postage paid).

Recycling Posters
The California Department of Conservation offers free beverage container recycling posters.

Waste Reduction & Recycling Books

Contact the City of Sunnyvale Library at
(408) 730-7300 or use their searchable on-line database for a list of books available about your specific topic of interest.

Earth 911 offers a list of environmentally-themed books for the classroom along with lessons plans.

Waste Reduction & Recycling Curriculum

For information on recycling and waste reduction curricula for your classroom, please contact Dorlene Russell, Environmental Outreach Coordinator, at (408) 730-7278. Samples of available curricula are also located at the links below:

Closing the Loop (K - 6th grade)
This curriculum is a compilation of activities to help students discover and nurture an environmental ethic and stewardship for natural resources. The hands-on activities focus on solid waste and environmental awareness topics including: landfills, recycling, packaging, resource conservation, waste prevention and worm composting.
Earth Resources--A Case Study: Oil (7 - 12th grade)
This science-based curriculum engages students through inquiry and laboratory investigations that focus on oil. The curriculum features more than 18 lessons that will enable students to learn about the lifecycle of a natural resource (using oil as a case study); how it is formed, discovered, extracted, processed, used, collected, and recycled. Through hands-on laboratory investigations, students will identify the environmental impacts of using natural resources and the positive actions they can take to protect the environment.
Life Lab offers a garden-based and grade level specific (K-5) curriculum which integrates earth, life, and physical science concepts within the context of a Living Laboratory school garden.
Project Learning Tree: Municipal Solid Waste Module (7 - 12th grade)
This curriculum provides interesting hands-on experiments and case studies encouraging critical thinking and decision making skills. This module, containing eight lessons, focuses on current solid waste dilemmas and helps students realize that they can create a positive change in their community and environment.
Reduce, Reuse n' Recycle Unit

You can also see a variety of sample lesson plans from the Pennsylvania Department of Environment.

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Waste Reduction and Recycling Grants

There are a variety of grants available to schools to help support waste reduction and recycling activities. A sample of grant resources are below. If you have questions about writing a grant or need other technical assistance, please contact Julie Benabente, Commercial Recycling Specialist, at (408) 730-7484.

California Department of Conservation, Division of Recycling offers grants for activities relating to beverage container recycling and litter abatement.
California Integrated Waste Management Board offers grants for recycled-content playground materials.
California Integrated Waste Management Board also offers a Unified Education Strategy (UES) Grant to school districts with sixth grade programs. The grant is for coordinating instructional resources and strategies for providing active pupil participation with onsite conservation efforts, promoting service-learning opportunities between schools and local communities, and assessing the impact to participating pupils of the UES on student achievement and resource conservation.

General Environmental Grants:

The Captain Planet Foundation offers grants for hands-on projects that promote understanding of environmental issues.
Center for Ecoliteracy offers grants for projects which foster the experience and an understanding of the natural world.
Dunn Foundation is dedicated to helping people relearn the value of community appearance through visual environmental education. The Dunn Foundation actively identifies and supports K-12 educational programs enhancing young people's understanding of the visual environment.
Leaf-It-To-Us is a California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection grant that funds tree planting grant programs designed for school kids to improve their school environments.
Lexus Environmental Challenge is nationwide education program and contest that challenges middle and high school students to participate in four environmental challenges about land, water, air, and climate.
National Gardening Association offers grants for school garden projects.
Toyota Tapestry Grants for Science fund environmentally-related projects by K-12 teachers of science.
U.S. EPA Environmental Education Grants Program provides financial support for projects that design, demonstrate, or disseminate environmental education practices, methods, or techniques, including assessing environmental and ecological conditions or specific environmental issues or problems.
The Watershed Project generally offers small stipends or larger grants to educators who participate in full-day workshops in order to help them complete targeted outreach projects.

Awards

Your school deserves to be recognized for its hard work! The following awards are available to schools/classes:

Jiminy Cricket's Environmentality Challenge
Fifth grade classes are eligible to win a trip to Disney World in Florida!
Brower Youth Award
Youth aged 13-22 are eligible to receive $3000 in cash and additional prizes for their outstanding activism and achievements in the fields of environmental and social justice advocacy.
School Recycling Awards (American Forest & Paper Association)