Teaching Sequence

Part A: Waste At Home

Step 1

Explain to the class that this is a homework activity in which the students will investigate the types and amounts of waste that they and their families produce over the course of one day.

Step 2

Students will need to make their families aware of the day-long activity and will need to provide clear instructions on how to carry out the exercise. These instructions would be best provided by the class teacher. Discuss with the students about developing a Waste Safety Code with their families. Important points would be (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Set up the bins/bags in a safe place so that family members won’t trip over them
Make sure that the bags are out of the reach of small children and household pets
Wrap smelly items (such as disposable nappies and personal items) in small plastic bags before placing them in the large plastic bag in the bins
At the end of the activity, dispose of the contents in the usual way, using gloves - don’t touch the contents with bare hands.

Step 3

Instructions for the activity for each student (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Set up six containers or plastic bags at home that are suitable for collecting different types of waste (glass, metal, paper and cardboard, plastic, organic matter, other).
Weigh the six plastic bags and their bins and write the weights on the Student Worksheet.
Ask each of your family members to place all their rubbish into the correct bins over the course of the day.
At the end of the day, weigh the six plastic bags and their bins again (with their contents) and write these weights on the Student Worksheet.

Calculate:

The amount of each type of waste in each bin.
Percentage of the total waste for each type of waste.
How much waste was produced per person (on average) in the household?
Estimate how much of the waste could be either recycled or composted and then work out the percentage of the total waste that could be saved from going to the landfill.

Part B: Comparing Results

Step 1

After completing the worksheet, students are to bring their results to the class for discussion.

Step 2

Students develop graphs from their results and display them around the room.

Step 3

Discuss the following questions with your students:

What percentage of the waste for your household will be sent to landfill?
What difficulties did you have in running this activity at home?
What did you learn from this activity?

Step 4

As a class, work out how much waste per person on average did households in the class produce?

Part C: Communication

Step 1

Explain to students that they will now use the results of their investigations to develop a message around waste to share with the school community.

Share the Waste Hierarchy (see below or here) with students and talk about how this could be used to help them create and refine their message:

You could engage students in a discussion around the Waste Hierarchy using the questions and suggested answers on the factsheet, Waste Hierarchy with Discussion Points.

Step 2

Students can then work together to create a waste-wise blog or webpage for their school. This could include facts about waste in Australia and around the world and tips on how to reduce household waste. Students could incorporate information about the Waste Hierarchy on their blog or webpage and how the waste hierarchy can be used to guide us when we're deciding what to do with our waste.

Reflection

Invite students to complete the following (also available on the Student Worksheet):

I used to think...
But now I think...

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Clean Up Australia - What's In Your Bin?

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