Backyard Conservation
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/newsroom/features/?&cid=nrcs143_023574
Backyard Conservation, from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, demonstrates ways that conservation practices used on farmland can be used to conserve and improve natural resources on the land around your home and school. Topics include creating backyard ponds, composting, mulching, water conservation, tree planting, and wildlife habitat. Because discussions of soil, plant life, animal life, and ecology figure prominently in the science curriculum, activities and lesson plans are available for grades 3-12. These suggestions require access to a piece of land around the school, though not necessarily a large one; and while they would have to be implemented in cooperation with your school administration, few of them would require serious financial investment. At the small-scale end of the spectrum, you could build birdfeeders or plant butterfly bushes to allow fourth-graders to study first-hand the animals that feed at them. On a larger scale, you could organize sixth-graders for a school-wide composting effort to explore their role in the food web.
