Planet Earth Pages
Waste Reduction
This issue's Planet Earth Pages were written by a team from
the Halton Board of Education in Ontario: Al Finlayson, Joanne Harris,
Ron Ballentine and Marilyn Bray.
"materialism places an unacceptable strain on natural
resources, so it must become unthinkable to waste. It must become
fashionable to conserve... to devote one's energy and time to the
repairing and sustaining of the earth..."
- W.A. Andrews, 1992
This issue's Planet Earth Pages feature activities that focus on waste
reduction in the school and community. The ideas are divided into grade
level categories, but there may be suitable activites in one of the adjacent
categories that can be adapted to your class. Have a look and judge
for yourself!
- Solution Songs
- Listen to a variety of environmental music and songs (for example,
Dan Gibson, Ronno, Raffi, Kim and Jerry Brodey). Alternatively, make
several visits to listen to the sounds in natural areas. Then have
students work in small groups with adults or older students to create
and record a song about reducing garbage. They can write new lyrics for
a familiar tune or create their own melodies (a small electronic
keyboard makes this even more enjoyable). They may also wish to record
sounds from natural areas and add those to their recording.
- Poster Power
- Have small groups or individual students create
posters containing one or more ideas for reducing the amount of garbage
we make. The posters could illustrate before and after, or positive and
negative; they could be a collage of photos, drawings, words and
objects. A good lead-up to this is to have the class watch videos, such
as Seven Ways to a Greener Planet, 50 Simple Things Kids Can
Do To Save The Planet, Changes: An Environmental Lifestyle, or
go on a field trip to a landfill or recycling centre.
- Choose Your Own Future
- After reading or listening to many
stories about garbage or other waste problems, have children create
interactive "choose your adventure" stories. The stories begin with a
problem related to garbage and then give readers a choice of two or more
possible solutions. Each solution leads to a different story path which
shows a consequence of the choice and may lead to more decisions and
choices for the reader. These stories could be published in a variety of
ways including audio recordings, big books, individual author's books,
or Hypercard stacks.
- Play Power
- Have students create and
perform short skits on the theme of waste reduction. This works well
with adult helpers or skilled junior students as "co-writers" and
"directors." Make sure there is lots of time to develop and practice the
piece, and that students have the opportunity to perform it for an
audience such as a lunch time gathering of several other classes or a
full school Earth or International Environment Day Assembly.
- Waste Walk
- Have students take "waste walks" around
the school and neighbourhood searching for "garbage hot spots" and
"garbage-free zones." Older children can create maps of the community
and mark these spots as they go. Afterwards, organize a litter clean-up
at the hot spots and create colourful door hangers, buttons or cards to
recognize individual homes or businesses that are "garbage-free zones."
- Techno-Trash
- This project links the concept of reuse
with children's love of taking apart and building things. Gather a
donated (or cheaply purchased) collection of used or broken appliances,
car parts, or other machines. Have the children use tools to take apart
the items, and then reassemble them or build new creations. Parents or
other adults from the community can be recruited to assist students and
ensure that materials are handled safely. Have older children draw a
plan of their creation and describe what it is and what it does.
- Design a Container
- Have students design and make a
container that helps them to organize their personal belongings, such as
a pencil case, book bag or desk top organizer. To promote the concepts
of recycling and reuse, have students either make the containers from
used materials, or think of a container (such as a paper lunch bag) that
they would ordinarily use only once, and design a reusable model (such
as a cloth bag).
- Green Holidays
- Reuse as many materials as
possible when celebrating holidays that occur during the school year.
Make new cards from old cards and wrapping paper. Make new wrapping
paper and gift envelopes by decorating good-on-one-side paper with paint
and other scraps of cloth or paper. Reuse scrap materials to create
holiday crafts. Have a gift exchange in which students pick names and
bring a toy or game from home as their gift. For hundreds of other
garbage free holiday ideas, see The New Green Christmas by The
Evergreen Alliance, ISBN 1-879904-00-4.
- Multimedia Mission
- With appropriate preparation by teachers, students can
create multimedia presentations to raise awareness of and offer
solutions to problems related to garbage. Stories, poetry,
drawings, still photographs, laser disk or CD-ROM segments, and even
video clips can be put together into very effective presentations using
such software as Hypercard.
- Past and Present
- Have students
generate questions about past and present attitudes toward waste. Are
people concerned? Are they taking personal action? Should more be done
by government leaders? Have them interview grandparents, parents and
other adults to find out how people dealt with waste in the past. Using
the information collected, have a class debate on the issue of waste.
- Environmental Buddies
- Have students
pair up so that each has one or more environmental buddies. At least
once a week, schedule a morning or afternoon for them to get together
for a variety of activities from reading stories related to
environmental protection to taking on a project to help the environment.
Give students a variety of choices and allow them to suggest projects.
Some possibilities are litter cleanups, habitat revitalization, and
environmental awareness projects such as letter writing or "yellow fish"
storm drain marking.
- Waste Audit
- Do a schoolwide waste audit.
Start by having students walk about the school to survey waste
collection areas (lunchroom, office, classrooms, etc.). Then assign a
student team to audit each area to record the types of waste found. For
each major type of waste that could be reduced (paper, compostable
food, etc.), create a chart with the headings "Problems" and "Possible
Solutions." Under "Problems," students record the observations they
have made while doing the audit, (i.e. children playing with paper
towels, throwing away half eaten fruit, etc.). Have students take their
charts to other classes, present the problems, and record ideas
from classes under "Possible Solutions." Have each team rank
the solutions for each problem found in their area and use a webbing
format to design a work plan to implement them. Headings should include
Who, What, How, When, Where. Present the work plans to the rest of the
class for evaluation and suggestions. Then prepare and present the work
plan to the school, class by class, through posters, signs, talks,
skits, and demonstrations.
- Landfill Visit
- Visit the local landfill site, municipal recycling depot,
sewage or water treatment plant, or hazardous waste depot to investigate
how waste is managed in your community. Create flow charts to illustrate
these processes, and identify the stages at which individual actions can
have an impact.
- Adopt a Site
- Visit a local natural area and
record observations about its ecological functioning. Create and
implement an action plan that helps minimize the impact of waste on your
adopted ecosystem.
- Environmental Collage
- As part of the study of waste management, use "found" materials to create a
collage that expresses an environmental theme.
- Make Something of It!
- Children in less developed countries of the world are very
capable of turning a piece of "junk" into a toy that will provide hours
of play. Have students research types of games from around the world,
and then design and create their own game or toy using "found" material.
Reference: Games of the World: How to make them; how to play them;
how they came to be. Available through UNICEF offices or Plenary
Publications International Incorporated, 300 East 40 Street, New York,
NY 10016.
- Waste Management Success Stories
- Read the article about waste reduction success stories in Green
Teacher 41, (December 1994-January 1995). Identify four features of
each school's program as described in the article. Collate the
information in a chart and then select the features that you could use
in your school to lead to improved waste reduction.
- It's in the News!
- Over a period of time, have students monitor your local or
regional newspaper for news, advertising, feature articles and
editorials that pertain to the environmental 4Rs. Use the information to
assess how sensitive your community is to these issues. Offer to write
an article for the local newspaper about initiatives your school is
undertaking in waste management.
- Surf the Net
- Access the Internet to send out a message asking other
schools what initiatives they have undertaken to encourage the use of
the environmental 4Rs in their schools. Collate the replies you receive.
Make a display that indicates where the information originated and how
it could be used in your school.
- Graph Your Garbage
- Monitor the types and quantities of garbage produced in your school. Graph this
information and use this baseline data to identify possible areas for
improvement in waste reduction efforts. After a specified period of
time, measure the garbage production again and graph the results.
Compare the "before" and "after" data to determine if your waste
reduction campaign was successful.
- Resource Reuse
- Have students bring an item of clothing or furniture from
home that needs repair, remodelling or rejuvenation. Complete the repair
so that the item can be used again.
- Community Exchange
- Organize a games and toys exchange at your school. Promote the activity
through your community school council. If it is organized as a
money-making venture, select an appropriate use for the money raised.
- Career Awareness
- Have students job shadow a garbage
collector, blue box truck operator, waste management consultant or
others with jobs related to the environment. Determine what education
path was required for these careers and their importance to society.
Speculate about possible future careers in this area.
- Media Study
- Investigate the mass media's
awareness and portrayal of waste issues. Are they part of the problem?
Can they be part of the solution?
- Multimedia Presentation
- Prepare a multimedia presentation related to the issue of waste
management.
- Research
- Have students review waste reference
sources in their school resource centre. Determine areas deficient in
information and take steps to locate and obtain data to fill the
identified needs: Locate Internet sites, write to provincial/state
departments of environment, contact environmental organizations.
- Fashion Arts
- Using good design principles, design and
construct garments from reused materials (e.g. fabric scraps, old ties).
Plan, publicize and carry out a "green" fashion show.
- Packaging
- Analyze the role of packaging in our
society as it relates to the accumulation of waste.
- Where Does it Go?
- Investigate the processes by which materials that are
recycled are used to manufacture new materials.
- Personal Action
- Have students conduct a personal/home
lifestyle waste audit. Determine how their homes can become less
wasteful. Develop and carry out an action plan to make the necessary
changes.
- Global Perspective
- Investigate issues related to
waste management from a global perspective. How does one nation's waste
affect other nations? How do rich and poor countries compare in types
and amounts of waste generated and methods of waste management?
The Planet Earth Pages were written by a team from Halton Board of
Education in Ontario, including Al Finlayson, Joanne Harris, Ron
Ballentine and Marilyn Bray.