Teaching sequence

Step 1

As students may not have developed terms for different kinds of waste begin this activity by explaining the following terms (using examples from student lunchboxes). Write these terms on the board:

Waste – any material that is no longer needed. Examples from your lunchbox might be: plastic used to wrap your sandwich, your empty juice box or an apple core. You might be able to recycle, reuse or compost these things so don't just put them straight into the rubbish bin.
Recycle – materials that can be made into something new at a factory. Examples from your lunchbox: paper sandwich wrap used to wrap your sandwich or empty juice boxes.
Reuse – material that can be reused in a different or new way. Examples from your lunchbox: paper or plastic bags can be used to carry things other than your lunch.
Composting material – material that comes from plants such as fruit and vegetables scraps. Examples from your lunchbox: apple core or banana skin.
Rubbish – material that can't be recycled or composted or reused. Examples from your lunchbox: plastic used to wrap your sandwich and the plastic straw from your juice box. These things can't be reused, recycled or composted and should be put in the rubbish bin.
Litter – material that has escaped from the rubbish or recycling bin and might pollute the environment.

Step 2

Using the examples of waste that you have brought to the class, ask the students to describe six common items of waste. You may wish to make a simple bubble diagram on the board to record their ideas about the properties of each kind of waste and what the item is used for. Ask a couple of students to come up and handle each package and describe their observations. For example:

Plastic bottle – flexible or soft, light, may or may not be able to see through it, they may also describe its shape and how it is opened and what marketing/labels it has.
Aluminium can – flexible or soft, light, can’t see through it, feels cold compared to the plastic, they may also describe its shape and how it is opened and what marketing/labels it has.
Steel can – hard or solid, can’t see through it, feels cold compared to the plastic, they may also describe its shape and how it is opened and what marketing/labels it has.
Paper – easy to bend, rips, light, can draw on it.
Glass jar – hard, heavy, can see through it, breaks and when broken is sharp and dangerous.
Apple core or peel – feels wet or damp, soft, easy to break up.
Fruit juice box – flexible or soft, can't see through it, easy to poke a hole into, inside it looks silver. They may also describe its shape and how it is opened and what marketing/labels it has.

Also ask students to find which ones have symbols. The most common symbols are the recycling triangle and the person dropping rubbish into a rubbish bin symbol. Ask them to describe and compare the symbols. When they find that plastic recycle triangles have numbers, explain that they are for different kinds of plastics. The numbers can go from 1 through to 7. These numbers are used when the plastic gets sorted before it gets recycled; different types of plastic need to be recycled in different ways so it is important to make sure that the different types of plastic go into the right piles for recycling.

It's not just plastic that needs sorting; all items that are recycled need to be sorted first.

Which items of waste that the students have looked at could be recycled?
Does anyone know what is involved in recycling these things?

Step 3

As a class, watch the video below, explaining that this is what happens to waste when it gets recycled (also available on the student worksheet):

Sorting Your Recycling - Video 1 from Cool Australia on Vimeo.

Following the video discuss what students observed from watching the video. Continue the discussion by posing the questions:

Have we always disposed of waste in the way shown in the video?
How did we used to dispose of waste?
When your grandparents were children, how did they dispose of waste?

Relate a story to students about how waste was disposed of in schools two generations ago (50 years). The school cleaners would collect the metal bins and empty them into a large incinerator and burn the rubbish, creating a lot of polluting smoke and smells. Discuss what an incinerator is. Ask students if any of them have seen one. Explain that most home 50 years ago had an incinerator for burning rubbish.

Step 4

Explain to students that they will be asking their grandparents or other older people that their family knows some questions about waste when they were children. Each student will have three questions to ask and will need to record the answers. The class will then combine their answers to produce a full picture of a history of waste.

Start by generating a list of questions that the students can ask to find out how waste was different two generations ago. If some of the students are from families recently arrived in Australia, then their parents may have interesting answers. Some example questions are cultural so the questions students go home with should be culturally appropriate. Examples of questions are:

How did they buy lollies?
How did they buy biscuits?
What was different about buying milk?
What containers did soft drinks come in?
What was different about buying soft drinks in a bottle?
What did they put their shopping into (plastic bags were not used)?
How did they buy their meat?
What happened to their waste?
Did the family have an incinerator?
Did the family have chickens? What were the chickens fed?
Did the school have an incinerator?
Were you given worksheets at school?

Students choose appropriate questions to find answers to (about three questions) making sure several students cover each question.

You should also send this note (Waste Interview Letter - also available on the student worksheet) home which seeks permission to contact a grandparent or older friend. It also has the recording sheet for recording the answers to the questions.

Reflection

Step 1

After students have interviewed an older person about waste, ask students to share their experiences of their interview and share their answers with the class.

Once all students have had the chance to share their answers, engage your students in a class discussion about which aspects of packaging and waste have the greatest difference between the grandparents’ time and now. Consider the following questions:

Which aspects of waste were better managed in the past? (E.g. reuse milk and soft drink bottles, no plastic shopping bags, less packaging.)
Which aspects of waste are improved now? (E.g. recycle more items, no incinerators.)
How can we improve the way we deal with waste now? Is there anything we can learn from the ways that we used to deal with waste?

Step 2

Ask students to create a drawing or poster that shows how we can deal with our waste in a way that is better for our environment.

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?

These Planet Ark resources were developed by Cool Australia with funding from the Alcoa Foundation.

National Recycling Week - From History to Our Classroom

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