Leadership Projects

• If your school does not have a recycling program, have the children start one by gathering their own ideas about how it should work (where recycling bins should be located, information be posted, rules enforced.). Students can rotate being "recycling officers" in charge of making sure items in the cafeteria and at clean up time in classrooms make it to the appropriate bins.
  
  

Art Projects

• Students can create interesting art out of thrown-out items, such as collages from old newspapers and magazines, wind chimes of painted glass or ceramic pieces or herb planters out of aluminum cans. Children can also use discarded objects to make signs that say "Please recycle," "Glass bottles here," "Newspapers only," etc., to mark several recycling bins in the community.
  
  

Environmental Activities

• Students can start a can, bottle and juice box collection to fund the purchase of a tree to grow outside their classroom window. Every month, the students can take a field trip to the recycling center to turn in their collection for coins. The coins fill a jar in the classroom that will buy a sapling at the end of the year. Have the children count how many items they collect each month and record on a bulletin board.
  
  

Paper Projects

• Turn old paper remnants such as notebook paper, copy paper and construction paper into gift wrap. From the beginning of the school year, start a box to collect paper for recycling. In December, have the children make their own gift wrap to wrap their holiday presents by attaching the bigger sheets together with tape or glue and decorating one side with the smaller remnants and markers and paints.
  
  

Classroom Competitions

• At the start of the year, each classroom can learn about environment awareness including what things can and cannot be recycled. Throughout the year, students can bring in items which can be recycled into their classroom (such as batteries, printer cartridges and old pairs of glasses). Whichever class collects the most items in total and the biggest variety of items wins the competition. All classrooms can then participate in recycling the items by going to recycling centers and donating to the poor.