Keep America Beautiful

The Great American Cleanup is an annual, nationwide, community improvement campaign started by Keep America Beautiful in 1999. This year, two million people across the country will volunteer to clean up their communities. Students will be an important part of these volunteer groups that together will form the largest litter prevention and beautification effort ever.

Keeping America Beautiful is just one of a variety of environmental themes for April: Earth Day is April 22; Arbor Day is April 25; National Garden Month; and 2008 is the 100th anniversary of the creation of the National Conservation Commission by environmental champion President Theodore Roosevelt

SIRS Leading Issues provides a variety of topics/issues that help to focus your students on protecting the environment and how that relates to Keep America Beautiful:

• Alternative energy sources
  
  
• Conservation of natural resources
  
  
• Endangered Species
  
  
• Pollution
  
  
• Environmentalism

Assign one or more of these issues to your students. The unique five-step process integrated into each SIRS Leading Issue ensures that students will use critical thinking and original thought in their presentations and reports. This process integrates the essential questions that students need to address for each of these issues.

Click the More Issues link in the Pro vs. Con section, then the issue assigned.

SIRS provides a variety of models for students to report their conclusions on any of the issues. Each of these unique models is designed to follow the unique five-step process. Written reports of about 200 words are the traditional way for students to report. The disadvantage of written reports is that students don't benefit from each other's new knowledge and it's also easier to plagiarize to an audience of one.

Other SIRS models are recommended if you want to integrate 21st Century Skills. Assigning mini-debates and PowerPoint presentations helps develop standards-based language arts skills. You have SIRS models to support you and your students. These models will help students work harder to impress their peers and share their new knowledge with classmates. Students will alsobe less likely to plagiarize when presenting.

• Click "Educator Resources" to locate:
  
  
• Writing a Research Paper
  
  
• Writing a Mini-Research Paper
  
  
• Creating a PowerPoint Presentation
  
  
• Creating a Mini-Debate

Finally, there's another and new 21st century opportunity for students to express their viewpoints on this or any other Leading Issue -- our new SIRS Leading Issues Podcast Competition. Hurry, the Spring deadline is April 11!