Environmental health

The environment is our planet Earth. It is important to keep our Earth healthy.

What does it mean to be healthy?

How can we tell if a plant or an animal is healthy?

What are some things we can do to help keep the Earth healthy?

Here are some ways to keep the Earth healthy.

Turn off the lights when you leave a room to save electricity.

Turn off the taps when you brush your teeth to save water.

There are many ways to keep our planet healthy. What are some other ways you can protect our Earth?

In this learning activity, we are going to use our ideas about ways to keep the environment healthy to practice writing a draft.

Drafting is the second stage of the writing process. Once we have all our ideas recorded in a brainstorm, we can write a draft to tell others about our ideas.

Brainstorm

Ideas to keep the environment healthy

Using the writing process, brainstorm ways we can help keep the environment healthy. Use the following fillable and printable document Steps of the Writing Process to review the steps.

Press the ‘Activity’ button to access the Steps of the Writing Process. Activity (Open PDF in a new window)

Prewriting: brainstorm

When we focus on a topic like “Ways to Keep the Environment Healthy” and think of ideas about that topic, it is called brainstorming. Brainstorming is a warm up for writing. First, we brainstorm ideas.

What are some things we can do to help the Earth? What are some solutions you can think of? Press the ‘Ideas to Help Earth’ button to check out some possible solutions.

Ideas to Help Earth

Student Success

Think-Pair-Share

Keeping the environment healthy

Using a brainstorm organizer, record the different ways we can help to keep our environment healthy. Access the following fillable and printable Brainstorm Organizer to record your ideas. You can also create your own brainstorm organizer in your notebook. If possible, share your ideas with a partner.

Press the ‘Activity’ button to access the Brainstorm Organizer. Activity (Open PDF in a new window)

Note to teachers: See your teacher guide for collaboration tools, ideas and suggestions.

WHO, WHAT, WHY and HOW? A writing plan

Before we begin a draft, we have to make some choices about our writing. A writing plan helps to understand who we are writing for, what we are writing, why we are writing and how it will look.

Who will read our writing? This is called the audience.

What are we writing about? This is called the topic.

Why are we writing? This is called the purpose.

What will our writing look like? This is called the form.

Writing plan

Let’s create a writing plan together by answering the following questions.

Student Tips

Writing a draft

Once the writing plan is complete, the draft is next! Some things to keep in mind when writing a draft:

• make sure to stay on the topic we are writing about
  e.g. Topic: Ways to Keep the Environment Healthy
• skip lines so there is space to make changes later
• write all ideas down and make sure you have said everything you want to say

Draft Checklist

Use the following Draft Checklist to help make sure you have all your ideas in your draft just the way you want.

Did I follow my writing plan? Does my writing make sense? Are my ideas in the right order? Did I have all my ideas down?

Your turn!

It is time to write your draft. The title of your draft will be: 3 Ways We Can Keep Our Environment Healthy.

Student Success

Writing your draft

1. Use your brainstorm to choose three ways to keep our environment healthy.
   Title of draft: 3 Ways We Can Keep Our Environment Healthy
2. If possible, share your ideas with a partner or record your ideas. Can you explain the topic and at least three ideas?
3. Write your draft.
4. Review your draft and use the checklist.

Note to teachers: See your teacher guide for collaboration tools, ideas and suggestions.

Reflection

How do you feel about what you have learned in this activity?  Which of the next four sentences best matches how you are feeling about your learning? Press the button that is beside this sentence.

I feel...

I have an excellent understanding of the concepts   I have a very good understanding of the concepts   I have some understanding but need to review some more  my understanding of the concepts needs a lot more work

Now, record your ideas about your feelings using a voice recorder, speech-to-text, or writing tool.

Press ‘Discover More’ to extend your skills.