This Kidspiration lesson helps elementary students consider the impact of recycling while solving story problems that involve simple multiplication (or repeated addition). Students will use symbols to illustrate each story problem.

Four activity files (listed below as attachments) are included to give students a variety of math problems and recycling scenarios. To see a completed example, open Earth Day Math_Exemplar.kid by clicking on the yellow “Download File” button.

Adaptations:
-In addition to writing their solutions, ask students to write a number sentence (repeated addition and/or multiplication) to go with their story.
-In each activity, the people are already on the workspace. To make the activity more challenging, have students determine the number of people needed from the story problem and then bring the people symbols onto the workspace.
-Extend the activity by having students use the symbols to create their own recycling math s

This activity was created using Kidspiration 3, which must be installed to open the files. Download a 30-day free trial at www.inspiration.com/freetrial