T- Tune in:
Ask the students the main question of the investigation: Are You Wasteful?.
Brainstorm with the class types of waste you can create in your home, school and community.
Classify the waste into organic and inorganic waste – why is this important?
Investigate differences between organic and inorganic waste and why it is important. Create your own definition of this waste. Ask the students the following question: Do you know what happens to your household waste?
Introduce the following video: http://splash.abc.net.au/home#!/media/526303/reducing-landfill-waste.
Get the children to discuss the video, is there a landfill near the school, do they think the landfills are effective at all, w
E- Explore > Questions, views and feelings about topic.
On paper strips, students record facts, feelings and opinions about waste. (ACHASSI073 – Scootle )Place five hoops in a circle on the floor, each one with the following statements written on a card: Things we know about toxic waste in Australia; things we like about Australia’s waste; things that concern us about waste; things about Australia’s waste which are interesting and intriguing; and things we would like to know about reducing waste (ACSSU075 – Scootle )
Sort the strips into the different categories, have a discussion about these responses.
Watch the TV series about War on Waste to introduce the children to the idea of waste.
Get the children to use the website that the War on Waste video comes from, get them to go through the different mini episodes, play the games, read the information that is published on the site.
L- Look > What do we want to find out? Skills, strategies, resources. Collect information.
The students have been introduced to the whole concept of waste what is done with waste in their community through the War on Waste videos that they watched. Let the students create their own investigation. Get the students to pose questions like: How does the local community deal with waste? In the past, present and future (ACHASSI073 – Scootle ). The children can use various sources like websites, the library and they can interview different members of the community and within the school so they are able to get a timeline of how waste has been dealt with over the years. Get the kids to research different laws like the introduction of plastic to Australia (ACHASSK092 – Scootle ). Get the kids to survey family members of different ages across a week identifying what they waste. Using this data, students create a timeline of a person from child to adult displaying the quantity of waste each person discards at different ages (ACHASSI076 – Scootle
S- Sort > Sort information using thinking skills. Is the information relevant? Biased? Connections?
Tell the children again what the purpose of this investigation is to learn about how we are able to use waste, students need to consider how they are going to bring all the information they have collected and present it.
As a class list main issues that are effecting local environments – decide how they are going to present the information. Students use collected data from the Look phase to identify patterns in people waste using a table and graphing tools.
T- Test > Does it answer question? Implications of findings?
Get the children to create a concept map of the conclusions that have been reached through this investigation. Students need to draw conclusions by connecting lines between indicate words and also they must write their own beliefs regarding the conclusions on the concept map. As a class, discuss the consequences of not increasing involvement in, and appreciation of, reducing waste in our homes and schools. Create a big concept map on the board as a class based on the whole class discussion about the consequences.
A – Act > Take an action in response to the findings.
Ask the students to share why they think we should try to reduce the amount of waste that we make?
List the reasons on the board: litter in the environment, harm plants and animals
Think about different types of waste that are created in the classroom get the children to the look in the bins in the classroom to give the children ideas, list these also: Paper, old pens and pencils, food wrappers and packaging, food scraps, drink containers and plastic bags. Ask the students to respond to the following question: HOW COULD WE CREATE LESS OF THE WASTE IN THE CLASSROOM? Ideas Include: improving packaging design, using products which reduce the need for packaging, composting organic waste. (ACHASSI082 – Scootle ) Split the students into groups, have them choose a type of waste and let them create their own waste reduction ideas. For example, This could be from a bin campaign to a waste zero competition (ACHASSK090 – Scootle ). etc.
R- Reflect > What has been learnt? What skills have been learnt?
Ask students to complete a self-assessment and reflection activity using the following questions:
- What is one thing I have learned about myself, and how I might help to improve the way I can reduce my impact on the environment?
- A Surprising thing I learnt… An Interesting thing I learnt… A Strange thing I learnt…
- An Amazing thing I learnt …
Answer the question: Am I wasteful?
Get them write the self-assessment on a piece of paper, get them to use various modes of literacy like images or writing to share their opinion on the investigation. Collect the reflections.
Then ask them to write on a separate piece of paper their own declaration of environmental awareness. They could say various things like….. I promise that I will always watch my waste or something like that are to write a commitment based on what has been discussed in this investigation.