Posters on Environmental Issues

Your family can be environmental advocates! Illustrate and share the importance of recycling, conserving resources, cutting down on car exhaust or another pollution issue. Make posters that share your knowledge and encourage people to take action. Posters may be displayed in community locations, including the public library, a local grocery store, a science museum, or a coffee shop.

Here's what you're doing:

Educate your community about the importance of taking action to protect or clean up the environment.

Here's what you need:

• Poster board (small)
• Internet access or printed information on an environmental issue, including a description of the issue, interesting facts, and possible solutions
• Pencils, markers, crayons
• Colored paper
• Old magazines (for pictures of ecosystems, plants, animals, polluters, and solutions)
• Glue, scissors
• Paintbrushes for applying glue to collage

Here's how you do it!

1. Divide responsibilities so some family members read facts and do research, some design the poster layout, and others look through magazines for pictures.
2. Choose an environmental issue related to pollution (litter, exhaust, conserving energy, recycling, landfills, pesticides, chemical fertilizers).
3. Come up with a catchy phrase about the problem and a solution, such as "Good Planets Are Hard to Find. Don't Fill Our Landfills with Recyclables!"
4. In pencil, trace or draw your phrase on poster board. Add a fact or statistic to support it. Describe how someone can take action to address the problem.
5. Add color to make it attractive. Use markers or colored paper for the words.
6. Add images to illustrate the problem or solution. You may draw a picture, add photos, or make a collage illustration using pictures cut from old magazines or printed from the Internet. If you are making a collage, use paintbrushes to apply the glue.
7. Ask for permission to display the poster(s) around the community.

Interesting Fact:

Teens and young adults, ages 16-24, are the biggest litterers and tend to litter more when they are in a group.

Reflection Questions:

1. How did our project help people?
2. How did our project help the environment?
3. Did our family learn anything or make any new friends?
4. How did our feelings about pollution change?
5. What worked well about our project?
6. What can we do better next time?
7. What is our next service project?