School + Business = Clean Air
Information for Educators
School + Business = Clean Air is a dynamic program designed to teach kids about how making wise transportation choices can make the air better to breathe for everyone. Teaching children the impacts of their actions on air quality at an early age will hopefully result in improved air quality.
Teachers are provided with a packet of educational materials and curriculum ideas. The science, math, and language arts lessons are targeted for sixth grade students; however some of the lessons are suitable for grades five through eight. You are free to use as much (or as little) of this material as you feel is appropriate for your classroom. Feel free to cut, paste and be as creative as you want with the materials provided!
Students are then asked to put what they have learned to use in creating posters that positively address one or more ways to keep the air we breathe clean (e.g., ride a bike to get somewhere, conserve energy, take the bus). The posters are then sent in to be judged for the poster competition. Wisconsin Partners for Clean Air will consider each poster’s message, content, design, and degree of creativity in considering winners.
One poster from each classroom will be selected for the final round of judging. These top posters will be featured in an exhibit in the lobby of the Department of Natural Resources Southeast Regional Headquarters in Milwaukee and will be posted on our web site. Additionally, each winning poster and class that enters the contest will receive a certificate of recognition.
The overall, top-winning poster will receive a special prize and will be featured on a magnet that is distributed to all program participants.
How to Participate
- Send in your School Registration form by October 25. (Download the registration form (PDF* 14kb)). If your school or class already has a business partner with whom you’d like to work, please let us know when you register.
- Integrate ideas from the curriculum packet (that will be sent to you during November) into your lesson plans to teach kids about the importance of clean air.
- Contact your business partner in March and invite them to come in to speak to your students about what their business does to help keep the air clean.
- Have students create posters on 8½ x 14 inch or 8½ x 11inch white paper using crayons, paints or markers to show different ways to get too school, work, shopping or other activities instead of driving alone. To enter the poster contest, mail posters by April 1st to:
Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce
756 N. Milwaukee St.
Milwaukee, WI 53202
attn: Peter Beitzel. - Commend the student who created the winning poster in your class with the certificate of recognition, as well as the entire class with the certificate of environmental caring, (which will be sent to you in April). Check the Wisconsin Partners for Clean Air web site in May to see the winning poster from your class displayed on line. Class winners will also be displayed in the lobby of the Department of Natural Resources in Milwaukee on the corner of North Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The rest of your classes’ posters will be displayed during the month of May (Clean Air Month) at your partner business site to help remind people there what they can do to help clean up the air.
- Fill out and return the exit survey that will be mailed to you with the certificates during May.
- Business partners will return the posters to you when they have finished displaying them at the end of May or early June. You may want to give your partner site a call to remind them to return the posters at the end of the month. The class’s winning poster will not be returned.
- Distribute the magnet featuring the top-winning poster (which will be sent to you in late May) to your students so they can have a constant reminder of what they can do to help keep the air clean.