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

REUSING AND RECYCLING: ACTIVITY 3 -  ***Is It All Really Garbage?                                         2 – 3

Skills: sorting, making sets

Time: two class periods, scheduled at the end of the day, two weeks apart

Learning Objective: students will sort classroom garbage into two sets: recyclable and/or reusable items and non-recyclable and/or non-reusable items.

NOTE: If your classroom/school has a recycling program, go on to REUSING AND RECYCLING: ACTIVITY 5. You may wish to keep the "can be used again" group, step 5, to use in REUSING AND RECYCLING: ACTIVITY 4. APPENDIX 6 describes how to set up a recycling program, if your class or school wishes to start one.

Materials and Equipment: newspapers, two large sheets of differently coloured paper; two felt pens, same colours as the large coloured sheets of paper; large plain sheet of paper for graphing; classroom garbage.

In order for this Activity to be most successful, you may wish to ensure that some appropriate items are in the classroom garbage or you may wish to use household garbage as well. You may also wish to collect the classroom garbage for a few days to use in this Activity.

Activity:

1. Towards the end of the school day, place the two large sheets of coloured paper on the floor.

2. Explain to the students that they are going to sort the class garbage into two groups: "can be used again" and "cannot be used again". Label each piece of coloured paper with one of these two headings. You may wish to have students select suitable symbols to put on the sheets to help them remember which sheet is which.

3. Empty the class garbage can out onto newspapers spread on the floor.

4. As each item is removed from the garbage, have students decide if it could or could not be reused again in some way. Include recycling as a "reuse" option if your community has a recycling program. Encourage students to be creative in thinking of ways in which an item can be reused, at home or at school. For instance, does a child’s family have a compost pile at home that could take the food scraps from the students’ lunches? Does the classroom have a "junk" pile for scrap paper, cardboard tubes, clean containers, etc., that can be used for student doodling, craft, art, socials and science projects? Can students take the extra scrap paper, or other materials, for use at home, if the pile gets too large?

5. Place each item on the appropriate piece of coloured paper.

6. Count up the number of items on each piece of paper.

7. On the large sheet of plain paper, draw a graph comparing the number of items in each group.

8. On the graph, have the students fill in the columns, using the colour of felt pen that matches the appropriate coloured piece of paper.

9. Keep the graph in a prominent place for two weeks.

10. Repeat this Activity two weeks later. Compare the results. Have students been successful in finding ways to reduce the amount of classroom garbage3?

RE…Think

Discuss with the students:

Have students select some ways of spreading the message to the other classes, such as making posters, writing letters or stories, writing a play.

If your class has just established its class "junk" pile ask your students what they can bring from home to donate to the "junk" pile? Explain to the students that they will be reusing and reducing their household garbage by bringing items to reuse in class. Have students draft a letter to their parents that lists the items that could be saved from the household garbage for the class "junk" pile.

Click here to return to the Index for Chapter 5 and more activities

Click here to return to the Index for Re-Think