Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Tune In:

Organising Your Clean Up Day

Find Out:

Sorting it out!

Take Action:

Analysing the results

Reflection

Tune In: Organising Your Clean Up Day

Step 1

There is an organisation called Clean Up Australia that encourages people to work together to make our environment better by cleaning up litter and waste. They have a day called the Clean Up Day, where lots of people come together to clean up their community.

You might like children to watch this video from the start until 1:17 minutes so they can see what a clean up day looks like.

Clean Up Australia Day - Behind the News (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okmv-ua5A-s)

Ask children to think about how the environment and people could benefit from an event like a Clean Up Day?

Step 2

The children are going to work together as a group to plan all the elements of a Schools Clea n Up Day. They will learn project planning skills and how to work together to organise a big event with teacher support.

Two weeks before the event, start working through the following tasks with your group to get them prepared for their Clean Up Day. Some of these tasks can be completed all together, and others have the opportunity for group work.

Getting children involved in the planning process is a good exercise in communication, leadership and organisation.

Before the Clean Up (Whole Class)

Clean-Up Day Details

• What time will your Clean Up Day happen at school?
• Who's joining in?
• Where will you clean up?
• Go for a walk around your school or local neighbourhood to select a suitable site to clean up.
• Discuss the reasons why you have chosen a particular site.

How to see your impact

• Before you start your cleaning, as a class, describe how the area looks.
• What goals can you set?
• These could be about how much trash your class will collect and what types.
• What good things will happen when you remove the trash?

Before the Clean Up (Group Work Opportunities)

Getting ready

• Everyone needs to have supplies to be involved!
• Your teacher should have a first aid kit, shade shelters, buckets
• Everyone in your class might need to bring good shoes, insect repellent, sunscreen, water, hats, rubbish bags,
• Make a 'What to Bring?' flyer for your class.

Letting everyone know

• How can you tell everyone about the Clean Up?
• You could make posters and even announce it at your school assembly!
• Don't forget to take lots of pictures!

Handling the trash

• Make a plan for how to collect the rubbish on your Clean Up day, will you have groups, specific roles, on the-go sorting?
• Where will all the trash your class collects go?
• Make sure there is space in the bins and recycling bins at your school!

Rather than getting children to plan Schools Clean Up Day, you may want to run it yourself. Here are some instructions to help you prepare and direct everyone on the day.

Find Out: Sorting it out!

Step 1

All the rubbish that you collect with your class can be sorted, tallied and reported back to Clean Up Australia. The collection of this information enables important statistical data to be collected from Clean Up activities all over Australia. This data is valuable for identifying trends in the types and spread of rubbish throughout Australia.

Count the types of trash collected with your students. You could do this somewhere outside while everyone is still kitted up in their gloves and hats! Divvy up bags to groups of students or allocate students roles such as tally marker, rubbish sorter, bag holder etc. Please note that only one bag in every five needs to be counted.

You can access the Clean Up Report from the Clean Australia website here to see what categories students should be on the lookout for. These include Hard plastics, Mixed plastics, Soft plastics, Polystyrene, Electrical Waste, Glass, Metal, paper/cardboard, rubber, fabrics, and wood. In your school setting, hard plastics, soft plastics and paper/cardboard are likely to be the main finds!

Step 2

Ensuring you dispose of this rubbish the right way is an important component of the Clean Up. Sometimes it can be a little tricky to work out where to dispose of what types of rubbish. You might like to encourage your students to look out for the Australasian Recycling Label on any packaging they find and help them use the Recycle Mate website to help them figure out what the correct method of disposal is for the rubbish they’ve collected.

You might like to watch this video with your students to introduce them to the Australasian Recycling Label

Check It! Before You Chuck It - Packaging Covenant (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue-4YDOlVN8)

You can share the results at a meeting and do the Clean Up Australia Rubbish Survey when you are finished!

Take Action: Analysing the results

Step 1

As a group, discuss the Clean Up Day and what you found in the process

Conduct a class discussion that touches on the following questions:

Where did the rubbish come from?
Are there any activities that have created a lot of rubbish?
Has technology played a role in generating waste?
What are the possible impacts of rubbish on our school and our health?
How much rubbish that we collected could be reduced, reused or recycled?
How can the data we collect be used to reduce the amount of rubbish?
How did it make you feel to see the amount of rubbish before the collection?
How does it make you feel to see the site clean after the collection?
How can we prevent the same amount of rubbish in the future?

Step 2

These discussions may lead students to think more critically about where the rubbish they have collected has come from, where it ends up, how it impacts us and the environment, and how rubbish could be reduced by disposing of it correctly or reducing what we use. Take this opportunity to take these ideas further with your class with the following optional tasks:

Educate others

• Assign groups to a specific type of trash that was found frequently during your Clean Up (e.g., plastic bottles, food wrappers, paper).
• Encourage each group to create a poster showing the environmental impact of their type of trash. They should include information on how long it takes to decompose, how it affects the environment and wildlife, and ways to reduce or recycle it.
• Groups can present their posters to the class and discuss strategies for reducing the use of, reusing and recycling these items.

Celebrate your success

• How will you celebrate the success of your awesome project?
• Who does your class want to tell, and what do you want to tell them?
• Plan a fun celebration to share your story with others.

Spark a behaviour change

• If there was a particular type of rubbish frequently found or a specific activity that takes place in your class or school that contributed to a lot of the trash found, your students could plan a behaviour change campaign to try to change the way people think of rubbish in their school.

Environment captains!

• Open nominations for a class environment captain/s. This group could create a litter management strategy for your class room for everyone to make a difference every day of the year!

Reflection

Reflect on children's involvement in the Clean Up Day by talking through these questions:

Has this activity changed the way you value the environment?
What changes will you make to your own behaviour?

Send the End of Clean Up Report incorporating the Rubbish Survey to Clean Up Australia so it can be used in the annual Rubbish Report. You may want to organise a BBQ and invite parents along to celebrate Clean Up Australia Day.

Clean Up Australia - Getting Involved

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UN Sustainable Development Goals

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