Often, on my way to work, I walk through broken glass, empty cans, paper, and other debris scattered throughout the school yard. I watch young people walk around eating “junk food” and dropping the wrappers wherever they happen to be, with seemingly no awareness of the consequences of their actions. It seems clear that we have a pressing need for environmental education.
Environmental education is primarily based on the concepts of ecology, the science that deals with the interrelationships among living and nonliving parts of the environment. The work in this unit is planned to help students become more aware of their environment, of how they affect their environment, and how the environment affects them.
This unit is planned for use with 9
th
and 10
th
grade students as an interdisciplinary unit in a general mathematics course. The environmental objective is the increased student awareness mentioned above. The mathematical objectives are to stress the development of problem solving skills throughout the unit and within this framework bringing in as many of the ten basic math skills
1
as practical. A suggested strategy for problem solving skills and their significance are included in appendix.
