Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

40 minutes

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

20 minutes

Part B: The Problem With Waste

5 minutes

Reflection

Lesson preparation:

Print out the Waste Question Sheet double-sided. Cut each question sheet in half so you can distribute one half to each student.
You will need two different groups of clean waste items that students are likely to be familiar with. Try and get three items in each group: for instance, three plastic bottles and three fruit juice cartons, or three aluminium cans and three plastic bags. Other waste items could include glass jars/bottles, plastic wrap, aluminium foil, paper coffee cups, cardboard boxes or paper. Try to pick waste items that are common to your classroom - perhaps do a quick check of the classroom rubbish bin to see what is a common item, or collect packaging items from the canteen.
Gather the above waste materials and ensure all items are thoroughly cleaned.
If necessary, use the Waste Safety Code to guide a class discussion about being safe with waste.

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Step 1.

Hand out the Waste Question Sheet to each student and explain to the class that they will be interviewing their classmates to find out their answer to the question, "What is waste?"

Ensure each student has a pen or pencil for recording answers. Invite students to get out of their chairs and walk around the room, asking three other students for their answers to this question and recording these answers on the Waste Question Sheet.

Once complete, invite students to share their responses with the class, recording key themes on the board. The aim of this activity is to develop a class definition for waste, for example, "waste is any stuff that we no longer want or can use that we throw away into the bin".

Step 2.

Now, invite students to turn their Waste Question Sheet over and again invite them to walk around the class asking other students for examples to add to their sheet. Students need to find three different examples of waste that they might create in a day, including in the classroom. Students should also explain where these types of waste have come from or what they've been used for. For example, plastic wrap comes from wrapping sandwiches and straws come with drinks bought at the canteen or juice boxes.

Once complete, invite students to share their examples with the class again, ensuring that all the items of waste you have collected for the experiment (Part C of this lesson) have been covered. Record these items on the board; you will refer to them later in this lesson.

Step 3.

Explain to students that they will now watch a clip from War On Waste which explains in more detail what waste is and where it comes from. As they watch, invite students to record any information they find interesting or important. View on iTunes or Clickview.

Episode 1, Australia - 0:00 to 1:56

Once complete, invite students to share their thoughts about the clip through a class discussion. Consider the following questions in your discussion:

What did you see in this clip that you found interesting or important?
What does this clip make you think about?
What does this clip make you wonder? What questions do you have about this clip?

Consider keeping a record of student questions; these could be used to guide further inquiry.

Part B: The Problem With Waste

Step 1.

Now pose this question to students:

What do we do with waste?

Invite students to suggest some of the ways we dispose of waste, such as landfill, recycling and composting.

If students need clarity around what these different types of waste disposal are, consider the following definitions:

• Landfill - Disposing of waste by burying it. When waste is out in rubbish bin, it goes to landfill.
• Recycling - Recycling means turning a waste item into something new that you can use.
• Composting - Composting means turning green waste or food waste into soil by letting it rot and break down naturally.

Step 2.

Now pose the question:

Why is it important that we dispose of waste correctly?

Explain to students the following two points:

Many of the materials that make up waste don’t break down or decompose when left in the environment. They can end up polluting our environment and harming the animals that live there.
Many of the materials that make up waste - such as glass, paper, plastic or metal - are made from natural resources; if we recycle these materials, we don't need to take additional resources from the environment.

If students are unsure which natural resources are used to make common waste materials, you could use these What Is It Made From Flashcards to guide a discussion.

Step 3.

You can then ask students:

What happens to waste that isn’t disposed of properly?

Invite some suggestions from students before introducing the clip below, from War On Waste. This clip shows what happens when some types of waste end up in our environment.

Share the following clip with students (iTunes or Clickview), and ask them to work in pairs to record their thoughts about this clip:

Episode 3, Australia - 2:00 to 5:38

Once complete, invite students to team up with a partner to answer the following questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

What happened in this clip?
What does this clip make me think about?
How does this clip make me feel?
What questions do I have about this clip?
Why does it matter where we leave our waste?

You can then invite students to share their thoughts with the class through class discussion.

Through your discussion, explain to students that this clip deals mainly with plastic bottle waste, but we make a lot of other waste too. Refer students to the waste materials they identified through the interview process earlier in this lesson. Invite students to suggest the different types of waste that we make. List these on the board, prompting students to include waste items that are made from a range of materials, such as paper, cardboard, glass, steel, aluminium, food, clothing and different types of plastic.

Part C: Waste Breakdown Experiment

Step 1.

Now explain to students that they will conduct an experiment to test how quickly two familiar waste items decompose. The test involves leaving waste items in a range of natural settings, such as underground, in water and out in the weather.

Display your range of collected waste items to students. Invite students to handle the items and identify the material/s the waste items are made of. Students should record this information in Table 1 on the Student Worksheet, or create their own table to record this information.

If time permits you could select additional waste items to experiment with. You will need additional copies of the table on the Student Worksheet to record your predictions and results.

Step 2.

Students can then work in pairs or small groups to think about which types of waste they think will break down fastest and which will break down the slowest. They should record this information in Table 1 on the Student Worksheet, or create their own table to record this information.

Step 3.

You can then begin your experiment.

Gather the materials you will need for this experiment:

Three pieces of the same type of waste
Labels and pegs/stakes – create a label for each type of waste you will be burying and place the label over each item of buried waste so you know what you’re digging up when it comes time to check breakdown rates
Gloves
A spade or shovel
A patch of soil to dig in (garden bed or soil box)
As many tubs or buckets of water as you have waste items to test

Introduce students to the Waste Safety Code, and your rules for outdoor learning, such as:

Prepare your waste items:

Underground - Bury each item and attach labels to the soil surface to correspond with the waste items you have buried.
Weather - Pin each waste item securely to the soil and attach labels to correspond with the waste items.
Water - Place each waste item in a tub or bucket and fill with enough water to cover the waste item. Waste items may float - you could consider weighing them down with a rock or leave them to float. Label each tub or bucket to correspond with the waste items in the buckets.

You might also want to consider adding a sign to the site where your waste items are to explain the experiment to other people in the school.

Step 4.

Assess your waste items once a week to see how they are breaking down. Each time you check your waste, discuss the following with students:

Which waste item is breaking up fastest?
Which waste item is taking the longest?
Which conditions (underground, weather or water) are causing the fastest rates of breakdown?
Why do you think some are faster than others?

Students should record their observations in Table 2 of the Student Worksheet. Alternatively, students can create their own table to record this information.

Step 5.

At the end of your testing period, remove the waste items one last time and record your final results.

Next, invite your students to analyse the results of your experiment using the analysis questions (below and on the Student Worksheet) - you could set up a class discussion to facilitate conversation, or students could work in pairs or small groups. Either way, focus students on these questions:

What happened in this experiment?
Did you get the results you predicted? Explain your answer.
Why do you think this happened?
How would you improve this experiment if you were to do it again?
What questions do you have about this experiment?
What does this experiment tell you about waste in our environment?
.

Note: You could also share the following information about waste breakdown rates:

• Banana - 3-4 weeks
• Paper bag - 1 month
• Cardboard - 2 months
• Apple core - 1 to 2 months
• Sock - 1 year
• Orange peel - up to 2 years
• Plastic bag - up to 20 years, although some plastics will never truly break down and will persist in the environment forever
• Leather boot - 40-50 years
• Tin cans - 200-500 years
• Plastic bottle - 450 years
• Aluminium cans - < 1 million years
• Glass bottles – unknown

Step 6.

Invite students to create a communication piece to describe their experiment and explain their results. Students could work in pairs or groups. You could select a communication form based on a medium that students are familiar with; alternatively, you could invite students to select a medium they think would be suited to this topic. The communication piece could include:

The waste materials used
Other equipment used (e.g. soil, water, spades, gloves)
Expected results versus actual results
Suggestions about why some waste materials take a long time to break down
Suggestions about actions we can take to reduce the impact of waste in our environment

Students can share their work with the class.

Extension opportunity: You could also create a class-wide communication piece to share the results of your experiment with the school community, and use it as the basis for a waste reduction campaign. See: War On Waste – Going To War On Waste – Years 4 to 6.

Reflection

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

I used to think...
But now I think...

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 - Understanding Waste

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