Environmental Sustainability Video Module for Fifth-Grade Students

The Challenge

A local community college’s environmental education and outreach office needed an engaging Hazardous Waste learning module for fifth-grade classrooms, to be delivered virtually as part of the college’s household hazardous waste drive promotion. The subject-matter expert had deep scientific knowledge of hazardous waste and sustainability, but had limited availability for meetings. The material itself needed to be translated from technical, adult-level content into something age-appropriate, engaging, and instructionally sound for elementary learners. The full module needed to be built in about three months.

My Approach

Working with a time-constrained SME, I:

• Conducted a learner and needs analysis to understand what fifth-graders could grasp about hazardous waste and sustainability, and what would make the topic engaging rather than overwhelming.
• Worked efficiently with limited SME availability, researching independently through scientific material and news coverage on household hazardous waste to come prepared with precise, targeted questions.
• Drafted and revised a video script through iterative SME feedback, ensuring scientific accuracy while keeping language and pacing accessible for young learners.
• Produced the instructional video using Camtasia, recorded in a home studio setup.
• Designed hands-on learning activities to reinforce the content, including having students identify common household hazardous waste items in photos of garages, closets, and under-sink areas, and design their own warning labels for a hazardous spray product.
• Provided a take-home component: a “green” cleaning solution recipe students could make at home, extending the lesson beyond the virtual session.
• Assembled the full experience in Google Slides, embedding the video and activities so presenters could deliver the module seamlessly to classrooms.

The Outcome

The module was adopted as a recurring part of the college’s outreach programming, delivered annually to fifth-grade classrooms to support the household hazardous waste drive. Students engaged enthusiastically with the label-design activity and reacted with surprise to the hazardous waste issues presented, indicating the content successfully made an abstract topic feel real and relevant.