Teaching Sequence

Step 1.

Explain to students that in this activity they will be creating a website or web pages on waste minimisation and management at their school. Why would waste management information for your school be useful?

Suggested answers:

Many secondary schools produce large quantities of waste (without a well-organised recycling and composting program, a typical secondary school of about 1,000 students could generate about five skips of rubbish each week).
Many students and teachers in a school may not be aware of how much rubbish their school is generating and how much waste is being recycled or composted.
New students to a school might not be aware of the waste and recycling system in the school.
Communicating to the school community about its waste system, with tips to help cut the amount of rubbish the school sends to landfill, help the environment while saving money at the same time. One way to do this is through school waste web pages.

Step 2.

Break your class into at least 11 groups and ask the groups to work off the Student Worksheet. Assign one of the following questions to each of the groups:

How much rubbish does your school dispose of through skips and rubbish bins?
What materials are recycled in the school (paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, aluminium cans, toner cartridges, corks, mobile phones) and what quantities of each material are recycled?
What materials are re-used in the school (e.g. paper)?
What happens to organic materials in school - waste and garden waste (mulch, compost, worm farms or sent away for green waste processing) - and what quantities of each type of organic material are processed?
A breakdown of the percent of waste materials in the school that are re-used, recycled, composted (or mulched or worm composted) or sent as rubbish to landfill.
The collection systems school - collection bins in classrooms, in the schoolyard and in administration areas (types of containers, signage etc).
Who manages the waste collection system?
How much photocopy paper does the school use in one year?
Cost to the school of disposing of or the different waste streams.
Cost of the school of purchasing photocopy paper.
Any benefits to the school of reusing, recycling or composting (e.g. save money as fewer skip collections).

Students should undertake the necessary research to answer their questions and then share their results with the rest of the class (using the Student Worksheet to record all the answers).

Step 3.

With all the research complete and answers to the questions provided, it's time for students to plan their web pages. Decide as a class how you would like the information to be presented. For example:

Will all the information be one page or divided into sections over several pages?
What images or movies will be used? Will you take photos at school or create infographics or hand-drawn images?
What supporting information will all be used, such as facts and stats about waste and recycling?
Is there a school style guide you have to follow? How will you incorporate your information and images into the style guide?

Work together as a class to make a plan for the website that can be used by the whole class.

Step 4.

Now it's time to create your web pages. Break the class into groups and assign groups different pages or sections according to the class plan. Ask groups to follow these instructions when creating their web pages:

Work out your main messages for the pages. Plan the main headings and navigation bars. Test these out with a few friends. Can students use the Waste Hierarchy to help them plan their messages?
Write the content for each heading, making sure that it is written in clear and easy to understand language. Again test this with other groups in the class to make sure they understand the messages.
Select and create appropriate photographs, movies or pictures for your web pages.

Before your site goes live, ask groups to present and demonstrate their trial web pages to other groups in the class to provide feedback. Using this feedback ask groups to make any modifications. You may also need to have the pages signed off by the school IT coordinator.

Step 5.

Announce your web pages through the school newsletter or at school assembly and present and demonstrate the pages to teachers and students.

Reflection

Ask students to complete the KWHL questions (also available on the Student Worksheet)

What do I know?
What do I want to know?
How will I find out?
What have I learnt?

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?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Clean Up Australia - Design Your School Waste Web Page

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