Teach:
Ask students about recycling. Get them to think about why some items are recycled and why some aren't. Tell them that some types of items break down easier than others. Some also break down faster than others. Some items don't break down at all. Let the students know they are going to do an experiment with different types of items to see which items break down (are biodegradable) and which ones don't (non-biodegradable).
Materials:
- Piece of Wood
- An Apple
- Styrofoam Cup
- Small plant
- Quarter
- Penny
- Napkin
- Piece of a Tin Can
- 8 2 Liter Soda Bottles or Gallon Milk Containers
Procedure for this science project:
Have eight student volunteers come to the front of the classroom. Give each student one of the items from numbers 1-8 in the list above. Give them each a soda bottle and have them label the soda bottle with the name of the item that will be buried inside.
- Make sure the top of each of the soda bottles has been cut off or you can have your students do it at this time.
- Have the students each measure out the same amount of soil and place it inside of the soda bottle. Make sure it is enough soil to completely bury the item.
- Have each student bury their item in the soil.
- Give the students the measuring cup again and have each of them add the same amount of water to the soil with the buried item in it.
- Have the children return to their seats and write a hypothesis. This is a guess as to which items they think will be biodegradable and which ones will not be. Have them list why they think this is so.
- After a few weeks pass by you will have the students take the buried items out of the soda bottles. What do they notice? Do any of the items look different from the time they were first buried? Have the students write what has happened in their notebooks. Ask the students to research the proprieties of each of the buried items to see if they find similarities in the items that biodegraded.
