Teacher Preparation

Students will...

... be able to apply mathematical processes to solve problems presented to them.

Students can...

... determine whether to add, subtract, multiply or divide to solve a problem.
... solve simple mathematical equations.

Make the learning intentions and success criteria visible to students throughout this lesson.

Teacher content information: What do you do with the things you no longer want or need, such as the packaging from the food you buy or bottles you drink from? Many of us have grown up thinking of this as 'waste', as something we need to just get rid of. But what if we think of these materials as a resource for creating new and useful products? What if we can re-imagine how we think about and use these materials?

Thinking of waste items as the resources required for creating new products is a great way to shift our thinking about what we should do with these materials. Recycling is key to this thinking as it means we can keep returning recyclables to the recycling system to be re-manufactured without requiring the extraction of natural resources from our environment: this is called 'closing the loop'. Closed-loop recycling assumes that materials will be re-manufactured over and over again, reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill and the number of natural resources extracted from the earth.

What does this mean for us? All it takes is putting the correct recyclables in the right bin. But why do it? There are a number of reasons and they're all very important:

When left in our environment, some types of waste - such as plastic waste - can leach chemicals into the environment, harming plants and animals. In the ocean, some marine animals mistake plastic waste for food and eat it. And some animals eat so much plastic they die of malnutrition. In addition, the chemicals that leach from the plastic can enter the food chain, being consumed by other animals and eventually people.
All the raw materials required to make any of the goods that we use come from resources that are finite, meaning that once they run out you won’t be able to get them back. Recycling means we can recover resources and find innovative ways to re-use these items over and over again.
Getting the raw materials to make products uses more energy than recycling. Take aluminium cans, for example. Making an aluminium can from recycled aluminium cans only takes 5% of the energy that is required to make aluminium products from raw materials (source). What about paper? Sure, we can always grow more trees to make more paper but growing more trees requires water and energy.
Recycling reduces the amount of waste going to landfill. Less waste in landfill is less waste in our environment, which is better for everyone.
By recycling in the right way we can increase the amount of materials recovered and reused to make new products. In this way, we can all contribute to closing the loop and enabling materials to be reused over and over again.

What is the future of the stuff we no longer want or need? By following a closed-loop principle, we are securing a future where there is no waste, only resources. To not re-think, re-imagine and re-manufacture these resources would be a wasted opportunity.

Information about Visy: This activity has been developed in partnership with Visy. For over 70 years Visy has been committed to finding sustainable solutions for Australia’s recyclables and helping to reduce local landfills. Visy collects, receives and sorts paper, cardboard, glass, plastics, steel and aluminium from households, businesses and schools with the purpose of reusing these products in the re-manufacture of new packaging products.

Many of us are familiar with the terms 'reduce, reuse and recycle' or even 'refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle'. In these statements 'recycle' is the final step. However, at Visy there is a unique, local dedication to their recycling with the aim to recover and re-use as much material as possible to 're-manufacture' those materials back into recyclable packaging within their own operations. This model helps demonstrate how the materials we place in the recycling bin can be remade into new products, which, once no longer needed, can again be recycled and re-manufactured. This is core to the idea behind closed-loop recycling; that the materials and resources we use in our day to day lives can be re-manufactured and reused over and over again.

NAPLAN: This lesson is designed to provide valuable practice for NAPLAN, the national literacy and numeracy test held in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. It focuses specifically on developing student ability to identify what mathematical processes are required to solve problems.

In numeracy, students at the minimum standard at Year 3 generally recognise, compare and order whole numbers with up to three digits, recognising standard representations and different ways of partitioning one- and two-digit numbers.

Students meeting the minimum standard have typically developed computational fluency with addition and subtraction of small whole numbers. They generally add and subtract two-digit numbers, add the value of coins and use partitioning and grouping to solve simple problems.

Calculating: Students recall basic number facts with small numbers and use them to complete addition and subtraction calculations. They recognise situations involving making equal groups. For example, students can generally:

Recall and use addition and subtraction facts to 20.
Use partitioning to assist addition and subtraction of one- and two-digit numbers.
Interpret repeated addition as multiplication.
Form equal groups of objects, given a visual support.
Count and record the total value of coins in dollars and cents (up to $5).

https://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/numeracy/minimum-standards

Note: The schools and contexts in the Teacher and Student Worksheets are fictional.

Concept Maps: This lesson uses concept maps to record/present student prior knowledge. Concept maps are a visual tool to support students to visualise and organise their knowledge and thinking around a particular topic.

Concept maps begin with one central theme, encircled in the centre of the map. Thoughts, understandings and information are added around the central circle, connected by lines. Below is an example of a concept map focused on addition:

More examples can be found at:

Concept Map Teaching Technique
How to Create a Concept Map.

Visy Education - Recycling

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