'Eco-Explorers: A Habitat Adventure‘ is designed specifically for young learners from Pre-K to first grade. Through interactive storytelling children explore three key habitats: forests, oceans and deserts. They'll learn the importance of each environment and begin to understand how their actions can help protect our planet. This adventure is perfect for sparking curiosity and encouraging early steps toward caring for nature.
The downloadable printable includes:
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illustrations of each habitat
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printable clipart
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follow-up questions and discussion tips
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Eco-Explorer Pledge (age appropriate)
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Eco-Explorer Certificate of Achievement, personalized
Get ready for a planet-saving adventure with the Eco-Guardians Eco Challenge! Each day, we'll tackle a new way to help Earth, from enjoying waste-free food and saving water, to recycling and reusing stuff, to learning all about different ecosystems. We'll even spend a day appreciating nature’s beauty! Perfect for kids aged 7-12 who are ready to become true Eco-Guardians, actively caring for our planet every day.
The downloadable printable includes:
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printable clipart
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detailed steps for each activity
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discussion tips
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Eco-Guardian Pledge (age appropriate)
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Eco-Guardian Certificate of Achievement, personalized
SOLAR OVEN EXPERIMENT:
Hands-On Activity To Learn What's Happening
To Our Planet And The Basic Principles of Albedo
Now, if you’ve read my blog, then you should have a decent grasp of Albedo. To put it simply, Albedo is a way to measure how much sunlight an object can reflect.
This is an experiment that I’ve done, and it is the best kind of science – easily observable and very tasty.
And, aside from a delicious marshmallow or whatever you choose to cook, there is some really useful knowledge that you can get out of this; namely, how the earth warms from sunlight depending on its albedo levels.
Try making two ovens – one with only foil and one with foil and black paper. Before you start, I want you to write down on a piece of paper which oven you think will cook faster – the one with the paper and the foil or the one with just the aluminum foil.
Now, go ahead and do the experiment before reading this next part.
Here are two good options:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/stem-activities/solar-oven
https://www.homesciencetools.com/article/how-to-build-a-solar-oven-project/
Okay, so now that you’re back, you might be wondering why the one with the paper worked better than the one without the paper.
This is due to Albedo – the foil has a high albedo, which reflects the light into the black construction paper, which has a low albedo, meaning that it absorbs sunlight and converts it into heat.But what does this mean for us?
Well, as a secondary experiment, imagine putting your hand on grass versus putting it on asphalt. Which one is hotter? That’s right, the asphalt.
Grass has a higher albedo, whereas asphalt functions exactly like that black paper in the solar oven – it absorbs heat.Cities are mostly concrete, asphalt, and cement, with far less greenery than their suburban counterparts. This means that the overall albedo of cities is lower than urban areas, which leads to a phenomenon called Urban Heat Island – basically, that on the same day with the same weather conditions and temperature, the city will be hotter than the urban areas. This, in turn, leads to increased energy costs in terms of air conditioning, higher air pollution levels, and more heat related illnesses such as heat stroke, all alongside higher average temperatures.
Albedo is one of the most important terms to understand, when it comes to climate science and one you must know, if you want to seriously research climate change at all.
So if you take away anything from this experiment, remember Albedo. And maybe a delicious smore as well.
We've developed 18 activities and projects (STEAM and critical thinking skills) for varying ages and levels - all related to climate change and information contained on Jackson's trees4humans website. We hope both children and adults have fun learning-by-doing more about trees and climate change through these hands-on learning experiences. Read more about experiential learning in the blue box..
Two important notes:
1. Help spread the need for fighitng climate change by taking photos of the child's completed activity or project or video tape him/her describing the activity or project. Then share the photos/videos with family and friends.
2. Be sure to email us (trees4humans@gmail.com) with photos or a few sentences about your child's activity or project and include his/her first name and last name initial or first and last name, so that we can email you a personalized certificate to acknowledge your child's role in the fight against climate change. (As homeschoolers, we know that a certificate can be used as documentation for homeschooling records.)
