Lesson One: How Much Trash Do We Produce?
Grade: 4th/5th Time Needed: 45 minutes Unit: From Trash to Treasure
Essential Question addressed in this lesson:
· How much trash and waste are produced each week in our individual homes, our city (Madison), and our state (Wisconsin)?
Standards addressed in this lesson:
NCSS Standards-
· II. Time, Continuity and Change.
· VII. Production, Distribution and Consumption.
MMSD Standards-
· D.4.7 (Economics) Describe how personal economic decisions, such as deciding what to buy, what to recycle, or how much to contribute to people in need, can affect the lives of people in Wisconsin, the United States, and the world.
· E.4.12 (Behavioral Science) Give examples of important contributions made by Wisconsin citizens, United States citizens, and world citizens.
UW-Madison Teacher/School of Education Standards-
· Standard 6: Connects school and community. This lesson gives my students the opportunity to learn how much trash and waste our community and city produces each week. This helps create a school and community connection by bringing the effects of society into the classroom curriculum.
· Standard 8: Employs varied assessment processes. In this lesson, I use both formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate the development and progress of my students.
· Standard 14: Relates well with students, families, and communities. Through this lesson, I will provide students with alternative options in case they cannot record the amount of trash produced in their home. This shows respect and sensitivity to families and individual students in the way that it appreciates the diversity that my classroom will hold.
Materials Needed:
· Students’ recordings of how much trash/waste/recycling their family/home has produced in one week.
· “The Story of Stuff” video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8)(Use “La Historia de Las Cosas” if in a bilingual/Spanish speaking room)
· Chart Paper/Markers (Including a pre-made chart where students can write the number of trash and recycling bags their home produced)
· Calculators
· Notebooks and pencils
Objectives:
· Students will calculate an estimation of how much trash is produced every week in their home, their city, and their state.
· Students will consider how much area this trash would cover if it were all lined up.
· Students will clarify/complicate their thoughts regarding consumerism and recycling.
Lesson Context:
Prior to this lesson, students will have recorded all of the trash and recycling that their family/homes produce in just one week’s time. I will show the students what I will be counting as a trash bag, which is a Glad 2 foot by 2 foot bag. I will tell them that, even though they may be using a different sized trash bag, they should record the type of bag or compare it to the example I showed. They will do this by recording the number of trash and recycling bags that their home uses, and then will bring this information to class. As a whole class, we will count the total amount of trash and recycling that our own classroom uses at home, and use this as a basis to calculate how much waste is created each week in our city (Madison) and our state (Wisconsin). This lesson will serve as a way to spark students’ interests and make them personally invested in how much waste is produced every week in our own community.
Lesson Opening:
I’ll begin the lesson by asking students to come up to the chart and record their findings (anonymously) about how much trash and recycling their families at home produced in just one week. This will serve as our basis for the remaining lesson.
Procedures:
1. After the lesson opening, I will ask my class what the lowest number of trash and recycling bags produced by one family was, then what the highest was. We will briefly discuss variables that could contribute to these different numbers (such as family size and other lifestyle choices). We will also talk about the kinds of trash and recycling they produced as a way to determine if they consume one type of item most frequently.
2. As a large group, we will then find the average number of trash and recycling bags produced each week using the our class data. We will do this by adding together all of the trash bags and dividing it by the number of students in the class, then doing the same for recycling. During this step of the procedure, I will be sure to define the words average and data to ensure that my students are learning and understanding this potentially new vocabulary.
3. Next, in groups of 4, students will use this average to calculate how much trash/recycling is produced each week by our city and state (if students want to take this further and calculate the average trash produced by our country, I will give them the statistical information for that, as well).
-The population for Madison (according to the 2006 census) is 223,389
-The population for Wisconsin (according to the 2009 census) is 5,654,774
-The population for the United States (according to the 2009 census) is 307,006,550
4. While the students are performing step 3 and calculate their estimations for the average amounts of trash produced, I will quickly calculate the distance that the trash and recycling bags would cover if they were lined up side by side.
-I will be using the fact that average household trash bags (such as the Glad bags in my kitchen) are 2 feet by 2 feet in terms of length and width (height is unimportant for this calculation).
-I will then take the total number of trash and recycling bags in our class data and see how many miles they would cover (knowing there are 5280 feet in a mile)
-I would use this to give the students a visual of how long our trash/recycling would travel if it were all lined up (such as “from our classroom to the playground”).
-If students were interested and if time allows we could also calculate the distance our city and state waste would cover as a whole class or in small groups.
5. After each group has calculated their estimations for the waste produced by our city and state each week, groups would compare their findings and we would briefly discuss our thoughts and feelings about the data. I would also present the information from step 4 at this time.
6. Next, we will end this lesson by watching the YouTube video “The Story of Stuff”. If time allows, we will watch the whole thing, but if not we will simply watch the part on consumerism and waste (starting at 8:15).
Lesson Closing:
After we have watched “The Story of Stuff”, we will talk as a large group about any reactions we are feeling. For example, I will ask students if they were surprised or alarmed by anything during the video, or if anything made them feel worried or uncomfortable. I will then tell the class that we will be continuing to learn about how much we consume and use, and that in the lesson tomorrow we learn about some of the effects that this has on our planet.
Assessment:
· Students will be formally assessed on their recordings of trash and recycling produced in their home.
· Students will be informally assessed based on their participation in calculating how much waste is estimated to be produced by our city and state each week.
· Students will be informally assessed based on their participation during large group discussions.
Special Considerations:
· I would use my knowledge of each of my students to make sure that they have an appropriate home life to be able to participate in the data collecting. If they are unable to collect data from their home, I would set them up with either myself or another teacher who could give them data from their home. If I feel a significant number of students would be in need of outside help to record trash, I would contact the school custodian or janitor and ask him to help us record how much trash each classroom produces each day for a week.
· I could invite the custodian or janitor into the classroom for an interview on how much trash the school as a whole produces each day/week.
· I would also send home a letter to families (or an email, if more appropriate) to let them know what we are doing and request that they help their student record the trash/recycling from their home.
Sources Used:
Story of Stuff Project. (2009). The story of stuff. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8
