Wash and Squash: How to Recycle
Duration: 45 minutes
Adaptable Lesson Design according to Age Group:
Students learn how to recycle by first learning what to recycle, how to handle items so they can be recycled, and why it is important that recycling is not contaminated.
This then leads on to a recycling Relay game, played in groups. The aim is to sort the recycling competing against the other group for speed. Then the educator and pupils check the recycling to ensure that items have been sorted correctly. Finally each pupil retrieves their items and returns them to the recycling bag.
OBJECTIVES
1) Students will assess items, and group them according to whether they are:
Plastics Numbers 1-7
Tin Cans
Aluminium Cans
Glass
Cardboard & Paper
Plastic Bags
2) Students will learn what makes containers recycling-ready.
3) Students will learn why contamination of recycling is a problem.
Sensible Shopping
Duration: 30 minutes/extension possible
Adaptable Lesson Design:
Students learn to make clever choices about what to buy to avoid waste going to landfill.
Objectives
1) Students will identify waste creating products and be able to identify substitute products, which are fully recyclable.
2) Students will look at various items which can be bought in waste-making and non waste-making form, including:
Tissues
Toys
Rolled Oats
Methodology
Plastic Food Wrap
Water bottles
Other items
Students will brainstorm other substitutions and learn how to make sensible shopping choices. Students will work in groups and give feedback to the class.
Extension activity: Making a shopping bag.
Materials required: Sewing machines brought from home, old T shirts or fabric, whanau or teacher helpers. Thread. Extra time.
Composting
Duration: 30 - 45 minutes/extension possible
Adaptable Lesson Design
Can be extended by including practical participatory activities in the school garden such as weeding, making compost, spreading out the school’s compost, or sowing seeds and planting seedlings
Students will learn what can and cannot be composted, and will see a worm farm at work.
Objectives
Students will become good at making compost by learning what goes in it, how it works, and why it is good for the environment to compost.
Materials Needed
Laminated compost bin cards, and flashcards
Worm Farm (portable) & gloves for handling soil.
Subjects
• Biology
• Environmental protection Sustainability
Methodology
1) Students will get a brief lesson on the way the compost works with air, sun, worms, water, and matter.
2) Students will observe a portable compost system in a bucket. The worms will be observed and the contents of the composting system.
3) Students will place pictures of items on a compost heap, sorting out whether they belong in the compost or not.
How Long does Rubbish Last?
Duration: 30- 45 minutes Adaptable Lesson Design:
Students learn how long rubbish lasts in landfills in this cooperative activity.
Objectives
• Students will work together in groups to formulate their best estimate of how long items last in a landfill.
• Students will learn about environmental consequences of not recycling. Keywords Rubbish, recycle, biodegrade, and landfill
Materials Needed
• Aluminium cans • banana • cotton rag • glass bottle • leather shoe • paper bag • rubber sole of the leather shoe (above) • Styrofoam cup • tin can (soup or vegetable can) • nappy • woolen sock
Subjects
Language Arts
Visual Arts
Educational Technology
Physical & Environmental Science
Methodolog
1) Students will make a timeline using cards placed on the floor from 4 months to 10,000 years.
2) Students will work in groups with pictures of rubbish items to guess how long items take to breakdown & feedback to the class.
3) Students will sort and classify items along the timeline.
Life Cycle of an Aluminium Can
The Life Cycle of an Aluminium Can
This lesson explains why it is so important to recycle aluminium.
It uses pictures and actions to make this point.
The students have to guess where in the production process we must return to
recycle aluminium. The lessons shows how many resources are saved by recycling.
Evaluation & Reporting
The class teachers in the participating schools will fill in an evaluation form detailing class numbers and making suggestions or compliments to improve the programme.
Optional lesson extension: A multiple-choice question quiz for each lesson theme, made interesting with pictures, will be provided to the students to consolidate their learning and also to check whether they have learnt the lesson objectives.
All the participants in the programme are responsible for Health & Safety, including the school staff, and the educator. The educator will abide by the Love Kaipara Health & Safety Manual.
The educator will provide a brief report to the school.
