Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

15 minutes

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

15 minutes

Part B: Understanding the Waste Hierarchy

60+ minutes

Part C: The Waste Hierarchy in Our Community

10 minutes

Reflection

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Preparation:

Student learning from this lesson will be enhanced by having completed the flipped classroom lesson prior to starting this lesson. If you have not completed this lesson skip directly to Part B.

Step 1

Begin by reviewing student knowledge on the following:

Years 7 & 8 –
- What is sustainability?
- How does sustainability relate to waste and recycling?
Years 9 & 10 –
- What is life cycle thinking?
- How does life cycle thinking relate to waste and recycling?

Work as a class to create a mindmap to explore students’ ideas around these issues.

Additional information about life cycle thinking can be found here, Life Cycle Thinking Factsheet.

Step 2

Invite students to share what they looked at in the previous lesson and what they found out. Consider reviewing the following questions from this lesson through class discussion (suggested answers included where relevant):

Why is it important to use the recycling bin correctly?
Suggested answer: placing items that can’t be recycled in the recycling bin can cause contamination of the recycling stream, which can mean that materials that can be recycled are unable to be recycled or that sorted waste materials are of a lower quality for reprocessing.
What is the Australasian Recycling Label?
Suggested answer: The Australasian Recycling Label is an evidence-based program that provides easy to understand instructions about how to correctly dispose of every part of a product’s packaging.
How many different labels did you find in your house?
How helpful did you find the older styles of labelling in deciding which packaging should go in which bin?
How helpful did you find the new Australasian Recycling Label in deciding which packaging should go in which bin? More information about ARL can be found here.
Do you think ARL should be mandatory on all packaging? Why or why not?
What other ideas do you have for helping people choose the right bins for their packaging waste?

Part B: Understanding The Waste Hierarchy

Step 1

Explain to students that although many waste items (like plastic bags or bottles) cause big problems in our environment, there are solutions (such as reusable bags and bottles). The solutions to the problems relating to waste and recycling can generally be categorised as belonging to at least one level of the waste hierarchy.

Display the following image to students, explaining that this is the waste hierarchy and that it shows the most preferable to least preferable options in terms of managing waste:

Explain the following (diagram and information also available here):

Reduce – Using fewer materials and refusing to buy products with a lot of packaging or packaging that can't be recycled.
Reuse – Finding new purposes for materials.
Recycle – Remaking materials into new products through the recycling process.
Composting- Processing certified compostable packaging with food waste to create quality soil conditioners (a material that improves the quality of soil).
Other recovery – Includes incineration with energy recovery or gasification or pyrolysis which produce energy.
Disposal – Landfill and incineration without energy recovery.

Step 2

Now, explain to students that they will be looking at a range of programs aimed at reducing the impact of waste on our environment.

Break the class into pairs or small groups and ensure each group has a copy of the Waste Hierarchy Sheet and each student has a copy of the Student Worksheet.

Challenge groups to work collaboratively to analyse the following organisations (using the questions below and on the Student Worksheet):

Analysis questions:

What is the aim of this organisation or program?
Where does this organisation or program fit on the waste hierarchy? Explain your answer.
Year 7 & 8 – How does this organisation or program relate to sustainability?
Year 9 & 10 – How does this organisation or program relate to life cycle thinking?

Once complete, invite students to share their thoughts with the class.

Part C: Exploring the Waste Hierarchy in Our Community

Step 1

Explain to students that they will need to find a waste problem in their school or home and develop a solution for this problem based on the waste hierarchy.

The first part of this process is to identify a waste problem. For the purposes of this project, it would be useful to focus on packaging waste as packaging is currently where you will find the ARL. If you clearly have a different waste problem at your school you could extend the lesson's focus beyond packaging.

Identifying a waste problem could be done by undertaking an audit of waste at school or home. Rather than handling the waste, students could take photos inside bins or of litter. They could then identify the most common types of waste and/or litter. For more information about how to conduct a waste or litter audit visit the following resources:

NOTE: When analysing the different types of litter it would be useful to categorise litter that is branded and unbranded; branded litter will most likely have some kind of labelling that can be easily identified and for which a solution can be developed. In many school canteens, food is often repacked in unbranded packaging. Identifying particular brands may mean, for example, that students can campaign those particular brands to join the Australasian Recycling Label.

Students need to identify one problem item that they will focus on.

Step 2

Working in groups, students will now brainstorm ideas for how to address the waste problem they have chosen. Ideas could include designing a different type of packaging with a label, creating a poster to describe how different waste items at your school can be recycled and what their labels mean, creating recycle-friendly food packaging using information on the ARL website, or campaigning for the company who produces the waste to sign up to the labelling system.

The brainstorm could be conducted in the following way:

Break the class into groups of 5 or 6 students
Give each group a piece of butcher’s paper and each person a marker pen
Before starting the countdown, ask students to write the waste problem on the top of their piece of paper
Students should stand around the tables rather than sit in their chairs as this encourages more creative thinking
They should:
- Work fast: they only have 5 minutes and they need 50 ideas on the butcher’s paper
- Do not discuss the ideas at this stage – just get them recorded
Give time markers as they progress – “Three minutes left! Two minutes! One minute left!” You could project a countdown of 5 minutes using this website
Share a rough figure of how many ideas have been generated across the whole class – remind students how productive they can be in 5 minutes
You could offer a prize for the group that creates the most ideas within the 5 minutes.

Step 3

Once groups have completed the brainstorm challenge, ask each group to spend the rest of the brainstorming time viewing and discussing their list of ideas. Invite each student to nominate their favourite ideas by:

Drawing a STAR next to the idea they think is the most creative
Drawing a SMILEY FACE next to the idea that they like best

In addition, ask each group to identify where on the waste hierarchy their ideas fit.

Step 4

Each group now needs to develop a one-page pitch to present their two ideas to the rest of the class. This means that groups need to nominate which two ideas to focus on and then develop a few details around these ideas.

NOTE: Explain to students that even though they are only focusing on two ideas they should keep a record of all the ideas generated through the brainstorm; these can be returned to for further inspiration or if the two ideas initially chosen turn out to be unfeasible

The details that groups need to develop for each idea include:

What this idea is (what will it do?)
What part of the waste hierarchy this idea fits with
Why they chose this idea (how is it going to solve the waste problem?)
What this idea might look like (just some basic suggestions)
Some images to help support their idea.
Years 7 & 8 – Suggestions on how each idea the objectives of sustainability
Years 9 & 10 – Suggestions on how each idea meets the objectives of life cycle thinking.

Students can use the Pitch Factsheet to guide them.

Each group can then pitch their ideas to the class. Students should aim to prepare a pitch that lasts about 6 minutes.

You could give students a copy of the Pitch Assessment Rubric to guide them.

Groups can present their pitches to the class. You can use the Pitch Assessment Rubric to assess pitches.

Step 5

Bring your ideas to life!

Option A: You could invite the class to come to a consensus about which idea to pursue as a class and work to plan and deliver this idea. You may also find that several ideas can be combined or that parts of one idea can be used to strengthen another idea. You could also use the SMART criteria below to help you choose an idea that will most likely be successful.
Option B: Select a number of ideas and work in groups to plan and deliver these ideas.

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to answer the following (also available on the Student Worksheet):

What parts of your idea do you think would be most successful and why?
What parts of your idea might be least successful and why, and how would you improve these parts?
How does your idea fit with the Australasian Recycling Label? How might it complement this program?
What opportunities do you see in expanding your idea beyond the scope of your home or school?

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?

National Recycling Week - Exploring Australia's New Recycling Labels

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