Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

20 minutes	Part A: Do we have a waste problem at our school?
60 minutes	Part B: How much waste does our school make?
60 minutes	Part C: How many bins does our school have?
60 minutes	Part D: What is in our rubbish bins?
20 minutes	Reflection

Lesson preparation:

Before conducting this audit, you may need to alert teachers and office staff when your students will be collecting data for this activity.
If necessary, use the Waste Safety Code to guide a class discussion about being safe with waste.

Part A: Do We Have A Waste Problem At Our School?

Step 1.

Break the class into pairs or small groups. Ensure each group has a workbook or two pieces of blank paper.

Invite groups to use one of the sheets of paper to collaboratively create a mind-map based on the term 'waste’. Students should add anything they can think of that relates to waste, including different types of waste, different ways to dispose of it, what waste can be made of, how waste can harm our environment and any other information about waste that they think is interesting or important. Encourage students to develop the ideas that other students are adding to the mind-map.

Once groups have created their mind-maps, invite students to share their thoughts with the class. Through this process, lead students to the conclusion that waste is created and dealt with in many different ways.

Step 2.

Now invite groups to focus on a new piece of paper. Pose this question:

What is the story of waste at our school?

Still working in groups, students should now spend some time completing a pre-assessment of the waste situation at your school, including what types of bins you have, your most common types of waste, which types of waste most commonly end up as litter and what waste programs already exist. Groups can again create a mind-map to record their ideas.

If you have already completed a Litter Audit of your school, ask students to consider how they could use the results of this audit in their mind-maps.

Again, invite students to share their ideas with the class. Through this process, pose the following question to students:

Do we have a waste problem at our school? Why or why not?

Record student answers on the board.

Keep a record of student responses; you will be returning to these later in this lesson.

Step 3.

Explain to your students that they are now going to conduct a waste audit of their school to find out how much waste their school creates, and what types of waste are being created.

There are three parts to the waste audit:

Firstly, students will be looking at the volume of waste the school creates
Then students will be looking at how many bins the school has
The third step involves analysing the content of bins at your school to identify what types of waste are being created.

With this information, students will then be able to create a plan to reduce waste generation and improve waste disposal at their school. The follow up social action lesson, War On Waste - Taking Action For Waste - Years 7-10, can be used to guide students through the process of turning their audit results into positive action for their school.

Part B: How Much Waste Does Our School Make?

Step 1.

Students will begin the audit process by investigating one type of solid waste at their school, for example, rubbish, paper and cardboard, other recyclables, food waste and green waste. Students should work in groups to complete this task; however, the number of groups and the types of rubbish investigated will depend on what types of bins you have at your school.

This will take some planning by the students, as the groups of students will need to go to different parts of the school to gather data. In the case of rubbish, paper and cardboard, recyclables and special rubbish collections, the students will need to find out information about these bins from the office staff. The information students need to collect includes how many of each type of bin there are, how much the bins hold and how frequently they are emptied. Students can use the Waste Audit Worksheet - How Much Waste? to decide what information they need to gather, and can use this same worksheet to guide the creation of the questions they need to ask in order to get this information.

Step 2.

Allow groups time to gather their data and record their results on the Waste Audit Worksheet - How Much Waste?

Step 3.

After the class has completed gathering all the data, ask students to work in their groups to graph the data, either with bar graphs or pie charts.

All groups can then present their information to the class.

Step 4.

Invite the class to answer the following questions:

How much waste is generated by the school each year?
How much waste is generated per student each year?
How much rubbish does the school send to landfill each year?
How much rubbish goes to landfill per student each year?
How much waste is prevented going to landfill each year through recycling or composting, etc.?
What else did you learn from this activity?

Part C: How many bins does our school have?

Step 1.

The next step in their waste audit will be estimating the total number of waste bins in your school. Students will be using a map of the school (either hard copy or from Google Maps) and the Waste Audit Worksheet - How Many Bins? to help in their assessment.

Step 2.

Break the class into small groups and ask each group to decide which category of bin they want to investigate. Alternatively, assign groups a specific type of bin to investigate.

Remind students to ask permission from teachers and office staff before entering a room to count bins.

Step 3.

Ask students to mark the number and location of the bins they are investigating on the map, and allow time for them to gather their data. Students can record their results on the Waste Audit Worksheet - How Many Bins?

Before heading outside, remind or introduce students to your guidelines for outdoor learning, for example:

Step 4.

After the class has completed gathering all the data, ask students to graph the data with bar graphs.

This first four minutes of the following clip provides a great introduction or reminder or how to create a graph, Way to Represent Data (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZKtsUkrgFQ).

Step 5.

Ask students to present their results to the class before engaging the class in a group discussion around the following questions:

How many separate containers are there in your school to collect waste?
Did you notice anything interesting about any of the containers or bins?
Which types of bins were missing and where could these bins be located?

Part D: What is in our rubbish bins?

Step 1.

The final step in the audit is to analyse the contents of the bins at their school. Students don't need to look at all the bins at your school; the class will be working in groups to examine the contents of three inside bins and three outside bins. Discuss with your students why they will be sampling just three bins inside and outside and not all the bins at your school. For example:

Why is one bin not enough and all the bins not necessary? Suggested answer: One bin may be biased and looking in all bins would take a long time. Sampling gives a good idea about what is really happening.

Step 2.

Using the Waste Audit Worksheet - What's In The Bins? students need to estimate the contents of classroom rubbish bins and outside rubbish bins. Remind students to follow their class safety code for waste: all students should wear rubber gloves for this activity as they may be opening and closing the bins.

Step 3.

Break the class into six groups. Three of these groups will examine the contents of inside bins and three groups will examine the contents of outside bins. Ask each group to decide which bins to investigate, or assign groups with a bin to investigate. Remind students to ask permission from teachers and office staff before entering a room to gather data. You may need to inform teachers and office staff that your students will be collecting data for this activity.

If time permits, you could increase the number of bins each group samples.

Step 4.

Once each group has decided which bin to investigate and have received the necessary permission to look in their bin, groups should start taking photographs of the contents of their chosen/assigned bin:

Open the lid
Take a photograph of the contents of the bin from a position directly above the bin (check the lighting. If there is insufficient natural light, then they may need to use a flash)
Close the lid.

Extension opportunity: If you are interested in doing a more in-depth audit of the bins you could empty the bins onto a tarp and sort the rubbish into types and then photograph these types and record this information on the Waste Audit Worksheet - What's In The Bins?

Step 5.

Groups then return to the classroom and download their photos to a computer. They should count the number of different types of rubbish that they can see in the top layer of the rubbish in each photo. Students should record their observations on the Waste Audit Worksheet - What's In The Bins?

Step 6.

After the class has completed gathering all the data, ask students to graph the data, either with bar graphs or pie charts and to share their results with the class.

Step 7.

Once complete, engage students in a class discussion around the following questions:

What were the five most common items in rubbish bins in the classrooms?
What were the five most common items in rubbish bins outside?
Was there a difference between the two sets of results? If so, why might this be the case?
Were there any items in the bins that could have been recycled or composted?
What could the school do to prevent this from happening?
What else did you notice that was interesting about the contents of the bins?
How did your pre-assessment of your school waste compare with the results of your audit? Remind students of the mind-maps they created earlier.

Reflection

Step 1.

Invite students to return to the question posed at the start of this lesson (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Do we have a waste problem at our school? Why or why not?

Students should work independently to respond to this question.

Step 2.

Share the following clip with students, explaining that it comes from War On Waste (iTunes, Enhance TV):

Episode 4, Australia - 51:57 to 58:12

Once complete, invite students to reflect on this clip and their audit using the following questions. This could be done as a class discussion or with students working independently (questions also available on the Student Worksheet):

What is most interesting or important about this clip?
What information in this clip could be used to help your school reduce its waste?

Step 3.

If you are planning on completing the follow-up social action lesson you can use the results from your audit to develop a plan for waste at your school.

If you are not planning on completing the social action lesson, invite students to work in pairs or small groups to come up with some ideas about how they could:

Reduce the amount of waste generated at their school (e.g. waste-free lunch box days, address the canteen about packaging options)
Improve the way school bins are used (e.g. create signage for bins to show what should go in or stay out of each bin, or introduce more recycling bins or compost bins).

Consider working with students to action one or more of their ideas.

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?

War On Waste - Auditing the Waste at Our School

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