K-ESS3-3: Ideas to Protect Our Local Environment
Also called NGSS K-ESS3-3 · Topic: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems: Animals, Plants, and Their Environment · Earth and Space Science
The Official Wording
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 trees to produce paper and using resources to produce bottles. Examples of solutions could include reusing paper and recycling cans and bottles.
NGSS Lead States, 2013 · Read it on nextgenscience.org · checked October 15, 2026
What K-ESS3-3 Means in Plain English
Kindergartners look at how people use up or harm things nearby, like trees cut for paper, then come up with ways to help and share them through drawings, talk or a class poster. Reusing, recycling and using less are all fair ideas.
The focus stays local: the classroom, the school and the neighborhood, not the whole planet. It builds on K-ESS2-2, about how living things change their surroundings, and leads to 5-ESS3-1, where students research how communities protect Earth's resources.
K-ESS3-3 I Can Statements
- I can tell one way people harm the land, water or air.
- I can think of a way to use less or reuse.
- I can share my idea with a picture or words.
K-ESS3-3 Worked Example
A paper-saving project a class can run over two weeks with its own wastebasket.
How can our class throw away less paper?
Set It Up: One week of the classroom wastebasket's contents, gloves, a tarp, a tally chart, and an empty box labeled for reuse.
- With gloves on, help the teacher sort the wastebasket onto the tarp.Paper, wrappers, other
- Count the paper and mark the tally chart.Paper is the biggest pile
- Pick out the sheets that still have one clean side.Many used on only one side
- Choose a fix: start a reuse box for one-sided scrap paper.Scrap box next to the drawing paper
- A week later, sort the wastebasket again and compare.A smaller paper pile than before
- Make a poster that tells other classes about the reuse box.Drawings and dictated words
After a week with the reuse box, the class threw away less paper than the week before.
Why it works: Paper is made from trees, so using both sides of each sheet means less new paper has to be made from them.
Common Mistakes with K-ESS3-3
Solutions too big to try
“We should stop all the factories.”
Try this: Start with something the class can do this week, like a scrap paper box or turning off lights when you leave.
Thinking recycling is the only answer
Every idea is “put it in the blue bin”
Try this: Using less and reusing come first. A water bottle you refill saves more than one you recycle after a single use.
Keeping the idea to yourself
A good idea drawn in a journal that no one sees
Try this: Share the solution with others, on a poster, in a talk or a note home, so more people can help.
Where K-ESS3-3 Fits
Practice K-ESS3-3
Quick Check
- Paper comes from trees. How could you use less paper?
- What is the difference between reusing and recycling a jar?
- Why tell other people about your idea?