War On Waste - Understanding Waste

If you want to begin your class’s war on waste, this lesson is the perfect starting point. By the end of this lesson, you will be able to assess your students’ understanding of waste and waste disposal methods before tackling participating in a waste disposal experiment.

In this lesson, students explore what they already know about waste before thinking about how we dispose of waste. The class will then learn about how abandoned waste impacts the environment. Students then participate in an experiment to investigate the different ways that waste items break down. The class will bury a variety of items and leave them to break down under three different conditions: underground, in weather and in water. They assess how the waste items are breaking down at regular intervals before communicating their results. This activity can be extended over several weeks or months, with the class revisiting the waste materials each week and recording their findings.