By PLT Staff

American Planning Association’s Scholarship Essay Contest
Deadline: January 15, 2009
(resource for PLT's Places We Live secondary module)
Looking for an extension to PLT's Places We Live activities?  You can ask students to explore their community's history with the American Planning Association’s 2009 Scholarship Essay Contest. APA’s contest asks students to develop an historic preservation plan to preserve the most significant historic areas, buildings, elements, and features of individual communities. Students can select one of the three options, described in detail on APA’s website, to focus their ideas.

River of Words Environmental Poetry Contest
Deadline: February 15, 2009
(resource for PLT's PreK-8 "Poet Tree" activity)
This international poetry contest helps youth explore their surroundings by expressing their discoveries through art. This year’s theme is watersheds and the environment. Use PLT's PreK-8 Guide “Poet Tree” activity to prompt a “River of Words” and give students the option to submit their poem to the contest. Grand prize winners receive an all-expense paid trip to Washington, DC to attend the awards ceremony at the Library of Congress.

K-12 Service Learning Standards
(resource for creating successful GreenWorks! applications and PLT's PreK-8 “Plant a Tree,” “Pollution Search,” “Planning the Ideal Community”  activities and more)
Service-learning is a philosophy, pedagogy, and model for community development that is used as an instructional strategy to meet learning goals and content standards. Use the national service-learning standards (http://www.nylc.org/objects/publications/G2G2008_StdArticle.pdf), developed in 2008 by the National Youth Leadership Council, to begin drafting a successful project.

New NASA Global Climate Change Site
(resource for PLT's PreK-8 “The Global Climate” and “Our Changing World” activities)
This new website from NASA is devoted to educating the public about Earth's changing climate, providing easy-to-understand information about climate change and how NASA studies it. Some features include a continuous snapshot of the condition of Earth's ice sheets, global average temperatures, sea level change, and concentrations of greenhouse gases.

Virtual Water Treatment Plant Tour
(resource for PLT's PreK-8 “Every Drop Counts” and “Water Wonders” activities)
A free CD-rom, produced by the Environmental Protection Agency, illustrates how source water moves through the water treatment and distribution processes and ends up in your home, school, or business.  The CD is also equipped with fun water facts and other classroom activities.  You can request a fee copy by visitng the EPA Website and filling out a simple form.

Soils Sustain Life
(resource for PLT's PreK-8 “Soil Stories,” “Watch on Wetlands,” and “The Forest of S.T. Shrew” activities and for PLT's Forest Ecology “Cast of Thousands” secondary activity)
The www.soils.org website, maintained by the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), provides educators with lessons and activities, resources, facts, definitions, and other links pertaining to the vital role soils play in our lives.  The website even provides a “state soils” directory where you can learn about the substrate profile of your particular state!

The Minamata Case Study on Risk Assessment
(resource for PLT's Focus on Risk secondary module, activities 5 and 6)
This National Institute of Health (NIH) online video documentary and transcript allows students to apply their understanding of risk assessment by discussing the 1950s tragedy from chemical exposure in Minamata, Japan. Using this video as a case study, students learn how to assess the people’s risk to specific chemical hazards and make decisions about how to manage that risk. Visit the NIH Curriculum Supplement Series website to find other helpful tools that support risk education.

Meet The Greens
(resource for PLT's PreK-8 “Improve Your Place,” “Our Changing World,” “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” and many more activities)
www.MeetTheGreens.org is a new students' guide to looking after the planet. Students can watch The GREENS' cartoon adventures and discover related green games, news, downloads, a blog, action tips, links, and much more. This innovative, web-only project comes from WGBH in Boston, the producer of shows like ZOOM, ARTHUR, Frontline & NOVA.

Earn Money for Recycling
(resource for PLT's PreK-8 “Pollution Search,” “Renewable or Not,” and “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” activities and PLT's Municipal Solid Waste secondary module)
Students can learn about eco-capitalism and earn money by recycling!  Terracycle buys plastic wraps, candy wrappers, and a whole slew of plastic containers to reuse for their business making everyday items out of trash.  Sign up for free to participate, and you will receive collection and shipping boxes delivered right to your door.  Money for each item you collect will be donated by TerraCycle to your school or non-profit organization of your choice. Visit their website to learn more.
 
Ploppy, A Spanish Water Website for Kids
(resource for PLT's PreK-8 “Every Drop Counts” and “Water Wonders” activities)
Are you interested in learning some Spanish water cycle vocabulary?  Are you looking for supplementary online environmental education materials for activities with English Language Learners?  If so, have a look at www.ploppy.net, an interactive water cycle website for kids. Ploppy’s website was put together by the Spanish Institute of Geology and all of the activities are in Spanish. Have fun exploring the water cycle in Espanol!

Careers in Forestry
(resource for PLT's PreK-8 “A Forest of Many Uses,” “Who Works in this Forest?,” “Loving It Too Much,” and “Forest for the Trees” activities)
Visit www.ForestryCareers.org for career and education information relevant to middle school and high school students interested in pursuing careers in forestry or natural resources. This project, supported by the National Science Foundation, looks at careers in policy, conservation, tourism, wildlife management, and much more while also listing many of the colleges and universities that support these academic programs.

Digital Directions
This online newsletter, produced by Education Week, focuses on technology and education.  You can find out what’s new, what teachers are using to fulfill their classroom needs, and learn about other cool techie tools, such as blackboard and moodle.