April 22nd : Earth Day
Le 22 avril sera la journée de la terre. Comme chaque année, le Café Pédagogique vous conseille des sites et des activités. Ne manquez pas dans la deuxième partie le site sur le réchauffement de la planète de Time magazine, et découvre le site de de General Electric.
The great Garbage Caper
In this interactive and online investigation into school trash, students will explore how to properly recycle and what can be done with more toxic substances. It is an online story for intermediates and above, originally designed for American under 10s, but which contains lots of valuable information.
http://www.ecokids.ca/pub/fun_n_games/storybook/waste.cfm
Recycle Trash into Artwork
Primary school teachers and their students will enjoy the wonderful art lessons available at this site, where the premise is to reuse discarded materials for very creative art projects. On this page, you can choose your recyled material and then match it with an art lesson.
http://www.kid-at-art.com/htdoc/matchtmp.html
The planet
Lower intermediate and above will find there all the resources they need to get information on the problems and solutions to global warming.
http://www.cafepedagogique.net/lemensuel/lenseignant/languesvivantes/anglais/Pages/81_EnvironnementTheplanet.aspx
A poster to download
Download this poster from Planet Pals and comment it with your students.
http://www.planetpals.com/pdfimages/recyclekit3_b.pdf
Webquests
*** for lower intermediates upwards, discover Michèle Henry's webquests:
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/earthwq.htm
Everyday Teaching Newsletter, Fri., Apr.6 recommends this webquest to invite the students to discover what bugs are beneficial and what are not.
http://ecokids.earthday.ca/pub/fun_n_games/games/bugHunt/index.cfm
Page of Links
Find lots of resources (games, songs, articles, interactive pictures) on the page I built for my students last year, fully updated!)
http://lycees.ac-rouen.fr/pascal/infonews/themes/earthday.htm
http://lycees.ac-rouen.fr/pascal/infonews/themes/earthandenvironment.html
Time's Global Warming Survival kit
This special report from Time magazines offers many interesting resources and several ways to use them. There are videos and ads to show to your whole class to trigger speech, short articles and interactive features that they can discover by themselves and them share, and some that you can even use as basis for oral exams. Discover the three main sites on this page : 51 ways to save our environment, an earth friendly home, Ge-ecomagination.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/environment/
51 ways to save our environment
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/environment/article/0,28804,1602354_1603074,00.html
51 short texts and pictures, each suggesting something to do to protect our environment. Those texts can be good basis for short presentations and discussions, for oral exams or just to invite students to learn different thing and then put their ideas together.
An earth friendly home
http://www.time.com/time/2007/green_home/
Drag the magnifying glass over the different rooms to see what's inside :
- a window opens under the picture which shows how much CO2 is produced by one person in this room,
- in the "related links" in green, access several sheets out of the 51 concerning devices in this room and giving tips to reduce pollution (read about the steaks in the kitchen!),
click on the different devices to read short facts and quick solutions.
The tortilla effect
A short article explaining that with the increasing need for biofuel, some products like tortilla and beer can become more expensive. A good basis for a discussion or a debate.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/environment/article/0,28804,1602354_1596572_1604188,00.html
Ge-ecomagination
A superbe flash site from General Electric Company. Available in English, French, German and Japanese.
http://ge.ecomagination.com/
- From the front page, click on "our commitment" at the bottom of the page and then "global view" to access diagrams and figures about the world's population growth, uncontrolled urbanization, climate change and drinking water supply
http://ge.ecomagination.com/@v=020220071742@/site/index.html#vision
- the ads : TV ads (I loved the surprising "fishing" about water desalinization) and also several beautiful print ads with interesting information.
http://ge.ecomagination.com/@v=020220071742@/site/index.html#news/ads
- specification sheets, user manuals and installation instructions for different types of electric ovens and a vine and beverage center
http://products.geappliances.com/ApplProducts/Dispatcher?REQUEST=SPECPAGE&SKU=JT980SKSS&SITEID=GEA&TABID=4
http://products.geappliances.com/ApplProducts/images/t07/0000004/r04074v-1.pdf
http://products.geappliances.com/ApplProducts/images/t07/0000008/r08405v-1.pdf
http://www.geappliances.com/products/introductions/wine_beverage/downloads/wine_beverage_brochure.pdf
- for beginners and lower intermediates and above : lessons and worksheets about the wind (from dot
to dot and coloring sheets to more sophisticated lessons)
http://www.gepower.com/businesses/ge_wind_energy/en/kids_teachers/index.htm
see especially this home inventory which invites students to review all the electrical devices in each room and think of a conservation idea for each, than compare with the results the other students found and discuss solutions.
http://www.gepower.com/businesses/ge_wind_energy/en/downloads/inventory.pdf
- for techicians : see this fact sheet about nuclear energy, and a poster and other fact sheets about nuclear energy
http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/downloads/nuclear_business.pdf
http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/nuclear_fuel.htm
and lots of other resources for technicians in different fields available there:
http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/index.htm