PITCH-IN CANADA
Resource Centre

Re-Think Activities
An educational Unit for children up to Grade 4
Written by Valerie Thom, B.Ed. and edited by Allard W. van Veen, APR, Fellow, CPRS

This unit has six chapters, each filled with information, ideas and projects. Words in bold and in italics are featured in the glossary which you can reach by clicking here

OUR GARBAGE: ACTIVITY 13 -  ***How Many Garbage Cans Can We Find At Home?                2 – 3

Skills: graphing

Time: two class period on separate days

Learning Objective: students will compute the number of garbage cans in their homes; students will consider the necessity of the garbage cans; students will consider ways of reducing the amount of garbage produced in their homes.

Materials and Equipment: graph paper; cutouts representing garbage cans; copies of APPENDIX 4, Worksheet 1 and APPENDIX 5, Worksheet 2 (one copy of each Worksheet per student).

Activity:

1. Discuss with the students:

• Where do you have garbage cans and/or wastebaskets in your home?
• Why are they where they are?
• How many do you think you have at home?
• Are they needed? (Include safety and health considerations, as well as aesthetic reasons.)
• What might happen if we didn’t have garbage cans in our homes?

2. Provide each student with a copy of APPENDIX 4, Worksheet 1. Have students complete the sheet at home and return it to school.

3. Provide each student with a copy of APPENDIX 5, Worksheet 2. Help students to complete their graphs using the data they collected on Worksheet 1.

4. Draw the same graph on the board in order to graph the class results. With the students, compute the class total for the number of garbage cans in each category, and then fill in the graph on the board. (You may wish to count by twos or fives for the class graph.)

5. Discuss with the students:

• Are there more bedrooms or more kitchens in most homes?
• How does the graph show this?
• Were there any rooms in your house that didn’t have garbage cans—why didn’t they?
• Were you surprised at the number of garbage cans we counted in our homes—why?

RE…Think

Discuss with the students:

• Why do we need garbage cans in our homes? (Health, safety, aesthetic reasons.)
• What would happen if we didn’t have garbage cans in our homes?
• Can you think of any places in the world where people might not have garbage cans? (Some native cultures.)
• Why wouldn’t they need them?
• Does the number of household garbage cans tell us something about the way we live in Canada?
• How can we reduce the use of our garbage cans at home? (Reduce, reuse, recycle our garbage.)

Have each student think of one way in which he/she can reduce the amount of garbage produced in his/her home then write a pledge detailing the action he/she will take. Ask students to take their pledges home to be signed by a parent. Post the pledges. A week later, review the pledges with the students. Have they been able to keep them? Can they think of more pledges they could make?

Have students make a BEFORE AND AFTER mural, showing the use of garbage cans in the home BEFORE people were aware of the need to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and an AFTER scene showing families finding other ways of disposing or reducing waste.

Click here to return to the Index for Chapter 4 and more activities

Click here to return to the Index for Re-Think