As I finish making copies for the week for four first grade classrooms, I look down at the pile of worksheets and I am astounded by the sheer amount of paper these students will use and eventually throw away during a typical school week. Add school newsletters, announcements, and fundraising pamphlets and the paperwork coming home each day in students’ backpacks can become overwhelming. For families with multiple children in the same school, the problem is only compounded. As “going green” gains popularity, it only makes sense to tackle the topic of reducing waste with our students. Hopefully, allowing students to witness a problem and design solutions will help them become more aware and responsible citizens.
Are there ways to reduce the amount of paper we use every day in the classroom? For in-class work, you can try giving each student a small whiteboard. I cut a class set of white boards from shower board I bought at a home improvement store, and they work great for a lot less money than buying individual boards. If you have access to computers or a computer lab, there are lots of free games and activities available online that students can use for repetition and practice. Interactive whiteboards can be a great tool for learning in a less paper-intensive environment as well, although many of us aren’t lucky enough to get those, yet! For more structured work that is best practiced on worksheets, you might be able to save a little paper by doing double-sided copying.
After students learn more about the problem, they may start their own recycling or re-use programs. Some enterprising kids started collecting paper waste for recycling or re-use and made a deal with their teacher to have a party in class when they had collected a certain weight of paper. They created the plan and timeline and presented their ideas to their teacher. As the amount of paper they collected increased, they earned intermediate prizes, including the chance to hold a paper-airplane contest (created with recycled paper, of course), and a “recycled” art contest, where students were challenged to create artwork entirely from things that were meant to be thrown away. To help reduce the amount of paperwork created in the first place, one parent volunteer at my school offered to mark the classroom mailboxes of siblings so that only the oldest sibling in each household would get copies of school notes, saving a lot of paper over the course of a year.
Is too much trash really a problem? What’s wrong with throwing away garbage? When stuff goes into the trash, it gets buried so we don’t have to deal with again, right? This may be true, but lots of garbage doesn’t end up in landfills, and the garbage that does get buried can take a really long time to decompose. One class created a mini-landfill in a plastic container with all different kinds of trash in it. They left it outside all year to see what would happen to the trash. How long do you think it would take a diaper to start decomposing in your own mini-landfill?
If you need to get your class moving, try this landfill game from PE Central. Kids can start thinking about issues with trash and recycling while they run around and let off a little steam. For a very different approach, Waste Management partnered with Discovery Education to create lessons about trash and recycling. You might find some useful ideas for your class in their Buried Treasure activities and lesson plans.
A great visual example of the damage uncontained waste is doing to earth is the pacific garbage patch, a huge mass of trash collecting in the Pacific Ocean. You can find lots of pictures and explanations of this phenomenon online. There is a detailed description of this and a couple of other major environmental issues in a free webinar from Maps101. Depending on the age of your students, you might want to show parts of it in your class or just use the information in your teaching. This blog entry is also very informative on the topic. It was neat to learn so much about garbage, a topic I didn’t know a whole lot about. That’s one of the best parts about being a teacher…learning with your students!
For a fun and interesting conversation-starter, watch this “mockumentary” that details the journey of a plastic bag from a parking lot to the open ocean, contributing to the mass of debris in the pacific garbage patch. The movie follows the bag as if it’s an endangered animal as it makes its way out into the ocean.
For more ideas in environmental education, be sure to visit the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Education page. This page has a section for elementary, middle, and high school students. Their Kids Club has a great section on garbage and recycling with activities, science experiments, and more. I also really like their interactive game, Recycle City. It’s got a detailed introduction to the topic, an online game, and related activities.
We always like to collaborate and share ideas with other organizations we associate with on our social networking sites. Keep an eye on the National Environmental Education Association’s Facebook page for tips and ideas. Also, the Teaching Ideas site has an extensive collection of activities related to different themes. We discovered these collections through their Facebook page. Be sure to check the site in November for their theme “Saving the Planet.” Good luck, and have fun going green with your students.
~Peggy's Corner - 10/28/2010~
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Talkin’ Trash
According to the EPA, the average American produces about four and a half pounds of trash each day, which amounts to a whopping 1,600 pounds per person annually. That figure does not include industrial waste or commercial trash – operations that produce much, much more trash than consumers.
Sometimes it’s difficult for students to conceptualize just how large these numbers really are. It helps, then, to use graphic examples when describing the problem. For example, according to WM Recycle America, each year Americans throw away enough aluminum to completely duplicate the full United States commercial air fleet. That’s a lot of soda cans! The same organization says that Americans toss enough glass each month to fill up a skyscraper. Examples such as these that are easy to visualize can really help to drive the point home for students of all ages.
Fortunately, Americans and many other countries have become much more conscientious about the waste we produce and how we can recycle materials instead of burying or incinerating them. Many schools have introduced their own recycling programs, and you can view many of their initiatives on YouTube or TeacherTube. Some popular measures include reducing or eliminating the number of days that the cafeteria uses foam food trays, refilling printer ink cartridges instead of throwing away used ones, and setting up paper recycling stations and bins throughout the school. There are many online guides and handbooks on establishing school recycling programs, some of which we’ll be featuring on our Facebook and Twitter pages this week; perhaps you’ll find something that inspires you to take greater steps towards establishing a “greener” school or community.
My picks this week focus on the trash or waste we produce, and how we can better reuse, recycle, or repurpose items to reduce the amount of garbage dumped into landfills or incinerated into the air we breathe. Students are naturally passionate about the Earth and “doing the right thing,” and the resources below offer some fascinating insights into trash, recycling, and human ingenuity.
Garbage Dreams
Subjects: Ecology, Economics
Grade: 6-12
In Cairo, the Zaballeen people survive by collecting and recycling trash; they recycle over 80% of the garbage they collect. In this online game, students take on the role of the Zaballeen, where they virtually sort, process, and profit from the garbage collected from Cairo’s neighborhoods. I like that this game takes the economic considerations of recycling into account as well as the obvious ecological benefits. To effectively grow their businesses, players can invest in various types of recycling equipment, which may or may not pay off. If they manage their businesses well, they can buy extra trucks, expand into wealthier neighborhoods, and perhaps hire additional workers to help in their recycling efforts. “Garbage Dreams” is produced by PBS as a supporting activity to their documentary of the same name. The game is aligned to national education standards.
Activity #2: My Water is Gray Water
Subjects: Ecology, Math
Grade: 5-8
In this activity, students determine the average amount of water they use during a typical shower and the concentration of soap in that water. The students learn the need to recycle gray water to allow plants, animals, and humans to survive in space. This activity was produced by NASA Quest, an educational initiative by NASA to provide educators, students, and space enthusiasts with information and activities that apply to real-world challenges faced by NASA’s space program.
The Rotten Truth About Garbage
Subjects: Ecology, Social studies
Grade K-8
This site takes an in-depth look at the complex issues surrounding municipal solid waste. This online exhibition is organized into four major sections: What Is Garbage?, There's No "Away", Nature Recycles, and Making Choices. The exhibit also includes numerous activities for students, ranging from oral history projects to trash audits. This resource was developed by the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), an organization of museums and science centers dedicated to furthering science education and innovation for the public.
~Joann's Picks - 10/28/2010~
Sometimes it’s difficult for students to conceptualize just how large these numbers really are. It helps, then, to use graphic examples when describing the problem. For example, according to WM Recycle America, each year Americans throw away enough aluminum to completely duplicate the full United States commercial air fleet. That’s a lot of soda cans! The same organization says that Americans toss enough glass each month to fill up a skyscraper. Examples such as these that are easy to visualize can really help to drive the point home for students of all ages.
Fortunately, Americans and many other countries have become much more conscientious about the waste we produce and how we can recycle materials instead of burying or incinerating them. Many schools have introduced their own recycling programs, and you can view many of their initiatives on YouTube or TeacherTube. Some popular measures include reducing or eliminating the number of days that the cafeteria uses foam food trays, refilling printer ink cartridges instead of throwing away used ones, and setting up paper recycling stations and bins throughout the school. There are many online guides and handbooks on establishing school recycling programs, some of which we’ll be featuring on our Facebook and Twitter pages this week; perhaps you’ll find something that inspires you to take greater steps towards establishing a “greener” school or community.
My picks this week focus on the trash or waste we produce, and how we can better reuse, recycle, or repurpose items to reduce the amount of garbage dumped into landfills or incinerated into the air we breathe. Students are naturally passionate about the Earth and “doing the right thing,” and the resources below offer some fascinating insights into trash, recycling, and human ingenuity.
Garbage Dreams
Subjects: Ecology, Economics
Grade: 6-12
In Cairo, the Zaballeen people survive by collecting and recycling trash; they recycle over 80% of the garbage they collect. In this online game, students take on the role of the Zaballeen, where they virtually sort, process, and profit from the garbage collected from Cairo’s neighborhoods. I like that this game takes the economic considerations of recycling into account as well as the obvious ecological benefits. To effectively grow their businesses, players can invest in various types of recycling equipment, which may or may not pay off. If they manage their businesses well, they can buy extra trucks, expand into wealthier neighborhoods, and perhaps hire additional workers to help in their recycling efforts. “Garbage Dreams” is produced by PBS as a supporting activity to their documentary of the same name. The game is aligned to national education standards.
Activity #2: My Water is Gray Water
Subjects: Ecology, Math
Grade: 5-8
In this activity, students determine the average amount of water they use during a typical shower and the concentration of soap in that water. The students learn the need to recycle gray water to allow plants, animals, and humans to survive in space. This activity was produced by NASA Quest, an educational initiative by NASA to provide educators, students, and space enthusiasts with information and activities that apply to real-world challenges faced by NASA’s space program.
The Rotten Truth About Garbage
Subjects: Ecology, Social studies
Grade K-8
This site takes an in-depth look at the complex issues surrounding municipal solid waste. This online exhibition is organized into four major sections: What Is Garbage?, There's No "Away", Nature Recycles, and Making Choices. The exhibit also includes numerous activities for students, ranging from oral history projects to trash audits. This resource was developed by the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), an organization of museums and science centers dedicated to furthering science education and innovation for the public.
~Joann's Picks - 10/28/2010~
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