Getting Started With Hands On Plastics
Welcome to the online Hands On Plastics™ : A Scientific Investigation Kit. The kit was developed by the National Middle Level Science Teachers Association (NMLSTA), and is produced and distributed by the American Chemistry Council (ACC). In its original format, the kit has been distributed to more than 25,000 teachers around the country, impacting more than 2.4 million students.
On this site, science teaching resources about plastics are made available to you and your students, along with easily downloaded step-by-step depictions of classroom science education activities. In addition, there are links to a wide variety of plastics resources. To further assist you, the American Chemistry Council has created a kit containing samples of a variety of recycled plastic resins and products that will supplement the information found on this site, and assist you in presenting the materials to your students.
To order the supplement kit, click here. Hands On Plastics™ has been distinguished with a number of awards. Read what others are saying about the HOP website.
NSES Standards
This site has been carefully constructed to meet some of the National Science Education Standards, by providing teachers with an inquiry-based science program for their students. The NSES urge teachers to "select science content and adapt and design curricula to meet the interests, knowledge, understanding, abilities, and experiences of students." Hands On Plastics™ is not only inquiry-based, it also investigates a material that is common to students' everyday lives: plastics.
Whenever you see this icon --
-- , the accompanying text or activity parallels National Science Education Standards.
For more information on NSES and how the standards are covered by Hands On Plastics™ , click here or anywhere you see the NSES icon.
Continue on to Introduction to Plastics 
NMLSTA
contributors to this project:
Mary Harris, St. Louis, Missouri, Chairperson; Denis Fitzgerald, Roscommon,
Michigan;
Dr. Harold H. Harris, St.Louis, Missouri; Susan Knorr, Quincy, Illinois;
Faimon Roberts, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Dwight Sieggreen, Northville,
Michigan
