K-ESS3-3: Human Impact – How Humans Share and Change Earth’s Resources

Performance Expectation

K-ESS3-3. Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.
Clarification Statement: Examples of human impact on the land could include cutting down trees to produce paper and using resources to produce bottles. Examples of solutions could include reusing paper and recycling cans and bottles.
Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to prepared materials.

General Overview

Humans are the most environmentally transformative species in Earth’s history. We have altered approximately 75% of Earth’s ice-free land surface, changed the composition of the atmosphere, acidified the oceans, and directly caused the extinction of thousands of species. Yet humans also plant forests, restore wetlands, clean polluted rivers, and develop technologies that allow us to do more with less. We are both the problem and – potentially – the solution.

K-ESS3-3 introduces kindergartners to this dual reality at the perfect developmental level: not with despair, but with agency. The standard’s focus is on solutions – specifically, on communicating solutions that reduce human impact on land, water, air, and living things. By asking students to identify, discuss, and communicate environmental solutions, this standard positions even five-year-olds as active environmental citizens.

The science and engineering practice emphasized here is Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information. Students gather information about human impacts, evaluate what is happening to the environment, and communicate solutions to their classmates, families, and community. This practice mirrors what environmental scientists and engineers do professionally – and it gives students a powerful experience of science as a tool for societal good.

The disciplinary core idea is ESS3.C (Human Impacts on Earth’s Systems) – the recognition that human activities have affected Earth’s land, air, water, and living systems and that scientific knowledge can inform solutions to reduce those impacts. This core idea runs from kindergarten through high school, growing from simple recycling in K to full analysis of climate change and sustainability in grades 11–12.

At the kindergarten level, the solutions focused on should be local, concrete, and personally actionable: reducing waste, recycling, conserving water, caring for living things in the school environment. Overwhelming students with the scale of global environmental problems is developmentally inappropriate and counterproductive – the goal is to build habits of mind and action, not environmental anxiety.

Scope and Sequence

What Comes Before

Many kindergartners have been introduced to recycling and “taking care of the Earth” through media, family, and preschool experiences. However, they often lack clear understanding of why these practices matter – what specific harm is being reduced and how their actions connect to the health of specific parts of the environment (land, water, air, living things).

At This Grade Level

Students develop understanding that: (1) humans use resources from the land, water, and air; (2) human use of resources can damage or deplete them; (3) there are specific actions that reduce human impact on specific parts of the environment; (4) these solutions can be communicated to others to multiply their impact; (5) kindergartners themselves are capable of making a difference in their local environment.

What Comes After

In Grade 2, students compare design solutions to slow or prevent land changes caused by wind and water erosion (2-ESS2-1) – applying engineering thinking to environmental protection. In Grade 5, students analyze Earth’s systems, including how human activities affect the water cycle, the rock cycle, and the atmosphere. By high school, students quantitatively analyze the impacts of human activity on climate, biodiversity, and resource availability, and evaluate engineering and policy solutions. The seeds of environmental agency planted in kindergarten grow into scientifically sophisticated citizenship in later grades.

What Students Must Understand

Human Impacts on Earth’s Systems

• On Land: Humans clear forests for lumber, paper, and farmland. We mine the earth for metals and minerals. We pave land for roads and buildings. We produce solid waste (trash) that must go somewhere. These activities change the land and affect the plants and animals that live there.
• On Water: Humans use fresh water for drinking, bathing, cooking, farming, and industry. We can pollute water with chemicals, trash, and runoff. When we use too much water, rivers and lakes can shrink and the living things in them can suffer.
• On Air: Burning fuel (for cars, factories, heating) releases gases and particles into the air. These can harm the health of living things and contribute to changes in Earth’s atmosphere and climate.
• On Living Things: By changing land, water, and air, humans affect the plants and animals that depend on them. Habitat loss, pollution, and climate change are major causes of species loss.

Solutions Students Can Understand and Practice

• Reduce: Use less of a resource (turn off lights, use less water, buy fewer single-use items).
• Reuse: Use things more than once instead of throwing them away (reusable bags, water bottles, cups).
• Recycle: Turn used materials into new materials (paper, cans, plastic bottles).
• Repair: Fix broken things instead of throwing them away.
• Protect: Actively protect living things and natural areas (plant trees, create pollinator gardens, pick up litter, support parks and wildlife refuges).
• Conserve Water: Take shorter showers, turn off the tap while brushing teeth, water plants in the morning when less evaporates.

The Power of Communication

• One person’s actions can make a difference, and when people communicate solutions to others, the impact multiplies. Scientists, engineers, and environmental educators spend much of their careers communicating what they know to help other people make better choices.
• Students can communicate environmental solutions through writing, drawings, posters, presentations, conversations, and example – they are already capable of changing their community.

Key Vocabulary

Human impact, environment, pollution, reduce, reuse, recycle, conserve, protect, waste, resource, habitat, local, solution, land, water, air, living things, stewardship.

Lesson Ideas and Activities

Activity 1: Before and After – Seeing Human Impact

Overview: Show students pairs of photographs: (1) a pristine forest vs. a clear-cut logging site; (2) a clean river vs. a river littered with trash; (3) a healthy coral reef vs. a bleached reef; (4) a clean city park vs. a park covered in litter. Students discuss: “What happened? What changed? What might have caused this change? How does this change affect living things?”
Important framing: Present these not as causes for despair but as problems that humans have caused and can therefore also help solve. “People caused this. What can people do to make it better?”

Activity 2: Trash Audit

Overview: Collect the class’s (or school cafeteria’s) trash from one lunch period (with gloves and appropriate hygiene protocols). Spread it out on paper and sort it: What could have been recycled? What could have been reduced (not created in the first place)? What was unavoidable waste?
Data Recording: Count and tally items. Create a simple bar graph: “Recyclable / Reducible / Unavoidable.”
Discussion: “Where does all our trash go? What happens to it?” Introduce the concept of landfills and why it matters how much trash we produce.
Action: As a class, design one change to reduce waste at lunch. Implement it and track whether the trash audit results improve over the following month.

Activity 3: The Water Watchers

Overview: Students observe and document water use around school for one day: how many times is the bathroom faucet left running? Do students take longer showers? Is the hose left on? Students tally observations and then design simple “water-saving reminder” signs to post in the school bathroom.
Math Connection: Estimate how much water is wasted if a faucet runs for 5 minutes (approximately 10 gallons). Multiply by the number of students. This is a powerful visualization of scale.
Product: Students design colorful, informative signs that communicate water-saving messages to the school community – practicing the communication dimension of the standard.

Activity 4: School Garden or Planting Activity

Overview: Plant something together as a class – whether a full garden bed, individual cups with seeds, or a small container garden on the windowsill. Connect this directly to the idea of protecting and nurturing living things as a human responsibility.
Discussion: “How are we helping the Earth by planting this plant? What would happen to this space if no one took care of it? How do plants help people and animals?”
Extension: If a school garden already exists, investigate who takes care of it, what it provides (food, habitat for insects, shade), and what would happen without human care.

Activity 5: Environmental Solutions PSA (Public Service Announcement)

Overview: Students (individually or in pairs) create a simple poster or “commercial” (perform for the class) communicating one environmental solution. This is the communication dimension of the standard: not just knowing a solution, but sharing it with others.
Poster Elements: One clear message (e.g., “Turn off the water when you brush your teeth!”); a picture showing the problem and the solution; one sentence explaining why it matters.
Gallery Walk: Display posters in the hallway to share with the wider school community. Invite other classes to walk through the gallery.

Activity 6: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Sort

Overview: Students sort picture cards of everyday objects and actions into three (or four, including “repair”) categories: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Then discuss: which strategy is most powerful? (Reduce > Reuse > Recycle – reducing waste before it is created is always better than recycling afterward.)
Discussion: “If you could only choose one of these – reduce, reuse, or recycle – which would help the Earth the most? Why?”

Common Student Misconceptions

Misconception 1: “Recycling is the most important environmental action.”

What students think: Recycling is the most commonly taught environmental action in early childhood, and many students believe it is the most important or sufficient response to environmental problems.
How to address it: The hierarchy is: Reduce (use less) > Reuse (use again) > Recycle (transform). Recycling still uses energy and resources, and many materials can only be recycled a limited number of times. The most powerful action is not creating waste in the first place. This is a nuanced message, but kindergartners can understand it with concrete examples: “What’s better – recycling a water bottle or using a reusable bottle you never throw away?”

Misconception 2: “Pollution only affects the places where people litter.”

What students think: Children often have a localized mental model of pollution – garbage makes garbage dumps dirty, factories make nearby air dirty. They may not realize that pollution travels through water systems, air currents, and food chains to affect distant places and living things.
How to address it: Use simple examples: “If someone pours oil down a storm drain on our street, where might that oil end up?” Show a simple diagram of a watershed – how water flows from streets to streams to rivers to the ocean, carrying pollution along the way.

Misconception 3: “The Earth can clean up all pollution eventually.”

What students think: Students may have the impression that the Earth is always self-correcting – that pollution will eventually go away on its own. While Earth does have some natural recovery capacity, this greatly overstates it.
How to address it: Use concrete examples: “If someone pours trash into a lake, the fish, birds, and plants in that lake are affected right away. The trash doesn’t just disappear – it takes a very long time for some materials (like plastic) to break down, and while they’re there they cause problems.” Emphasize that humans solving human problems is far more effective than waiting for nature to fix what we broke.

Misconception 4: “Kids can’t really make a difference – only adults and scientists can fix environmental problems.”

What students think: Young children often feel powerless in the face of large-scale environmental challenges, especially when they learn about them through the lens of global crisis.
How to address it: Focus on local, concrete actions with visible effects. Show examples of children and young people who have made real differences (school recycling programs, youth tree-planting initiatives, children who advocated for local park protection). Celebrate actions students take in class and at home. The message should be: “You matter. Your actions matter. Start here, start now.”

Misconception 5: “Nature and humans are separate – nature is somewhere far away.”

What students think: Urban and suburban students in particular may have a mental model in which “nature” is something separate from and distant from their daily lives – in a park, a forest, or a nature documentary. This disconnects them from the immediate environment they inhabit and the ways their daily choices affect it.
How to address it: Draw attention to nature in the immediate school environment: birds, insects, plants, sky, weather, soil. Every child lives in nature – even a city apartment building is part of Earth’s systems. The water coming out of the tap, the food in the lunch box, the air they breathe – all are products of Earth’s natural systems.

Assessment Questions

Understanding Human Impact

1. What are some ways humans can hurt the environment? Give an example for land, water, or air.
2. Why does it matter if we pollute a river? Who is affected?
3. If we cut down all the trees in a forest to make paper, what might happen to the animals that lived there?

Understanding Solutions

4. What is one thing you can do at home to help protect the land, water, or air?
5. What is the difference between reducing, reusing, and recycling? Give an example of each.
6. Why is it better to use a reusable water bottle than to buy many plastic water bottles?

Communication of Solutions

7. (Student shows their poster or PSA) Explain your environmental solution to me. What is the problem you are trying to solve? What should people do? Why does this help?
8. Imagine you want to convince your family to save water at home. What would you say or show them?
9. Your neighbor is about to throw away a glass jar. What could you suggest they do with it instead of throwing it away?

Connecting to Larger Ideas

10. We have been learning about weather, land and water, and natural resources. How are all of these connected to human impact? If humans pollute the air, how might that affect weather? Living things?
11. Why do you think scientists study human impact on the environment? How do they use what they find out to help?
12. What is one thing you plan to do differently because of what you learned in science this year?

Cross-Curricular Connections

Engineering Design (ETS1)

Designing solutions to reduce waste or protect water quality is an engineering design challenge. Students can apply the engineering design process (ask, imagine, plan, create, improve) to environmental problems at an age-appropriate level.

Social Studies / Civics

Environmental stewardship is a dimension of civic responsibility. Students connect individual actions to community well-being, practice communicating to others, and learn that collective action can solve problems that individuals cannot solve alone.

ELA

Informational text reading about environmental topics; writing and drawing to communicate solutions; persuasive speaking (trying to convince someone to take an environmental action); reading environmental books and responding to key ideas.

Art

Creating environmental art from recycled materials; designing posters and PSAs; using art to communicate environmental messages – a powerful tradition in environmental advocacy.

Mathematics

Data collection and graphing in the trash audit; estimation and multiplication for calculating waste quantities; comparing quantities before and after a conservation intervention.

Teacher Background Knowledge

Major Categories of Human Environmental Impact:

1. Land use change – conversion of natural habitats to agricultural, urban, and industrial uses (the largest driver of biodiversity loss worldwide).
2. Pollution – chemical, plastic, noise, and light pollution of air, water, and soil.
3. Climate change – caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and agriculture.
4. Overexploitation – overfishing, overhunting, overharvesting of natural resources beyond sustainable rates.
5. Invasive species – the deliberate or accidental introduction of non-native species that disrupt local ecosystems. At kindergarten, focus on concrete, local examples of land, water, and air impacts.

The Waste Hierarchy: In order from most to least preferable:

1. Prevention – avoid generating waste in the first place.
2. Reuse – use items again without transforming them.
3. Recycling – processing waste into new materials.
4. Recovery – energy recovery from waste (waste-to-energy plants)
5. Disposal – landfill or incineration without energy recovery.
6. Teaching the full hierarchy helps students understand that recycling, while positive, is not sufficient on its own.

What Happens to Trash: In the US, municipal solid waste goes to: landfills (approximately 50%), recycling facilities (approximately 32%), combustion/energy recovery facilities (approximately 12%), and composting facilities (approximately 6%). Landfills are engineered facilities that isolate waste from the environment, but they fill up and produce greenhouse gases as organic waste decomposes. Reducing the amount of waste we produce and increasing recycling and composting are key goals of waste management policy.

The Water Cycle and Pollution: Water pollution is particularly pernicious because of the water cycle. Pollutants that enter surface water (rivers, lakes) can evaporate and return as precipitation, enter groundwater systems, or be taken up by plants and animals and concentrated through the food chain (bioaccumulation). This is why seemingly local pollution events can have wide-ranging effects.

Kindergarten Earth Science – Year-Long Unit Integration

The five major kindergarten earth science standards (K-ESS2-1, K-ESS2-2, K-ESS3-1, K-ESS3-2, K-ESS3-3) and the connected energy standard (K-PS3-1) form a coherent conceptual arc when taught in an intentional sequence:

1. Fall: Weather Patterns (K-ESS2-1) – Establish the habit of scientific observation by tracking local weather daily.
2. Fall/Winter: Sunlight and Earth’s Surface (K-PS3-1) – Investigate how the sun’s energy shapes weather and warms different surfaces.
3. Winter: Land, Water, and Maps (K-ESS2-2) – Zoom out from local weather to Earth’s larger features: where land and water are found.
4. Winter/Spring: Natural Resources and Habitats (K-ESS3-1) – Connect Earth’s features to the living things that depend on them, including humans.
5. Spring: Natural Hazards (K-ESS3-2) – Examine when weather and Earth’s processes become dangerous, and what science does to protect people.
6. Spring: Human Impact and Solutions (K-ESS3-3) – Close the year with student agency: how can we protect the Earth and its living things?

This sequence moves from the immediate and observable (weather outside our window) to the globally significant (human impact on Earth’s systems), building conceptual scaffolding at each step. It ends with students as active agents rather than passive observers – a powerful pedagogical choice that prepares them for a lifetime of scientifically informed environmental citizenship.