Like I’ve said before, this whole website is a learning experience for me. So in knowing this, I have decided to learn with you, and introduce you to what I am doing in my classroom. Above is a little introduction lesson to what Zero Waste is and how I introduced it in my classroom.
You can use this lesson in lots of different ways, depending on your students and their abilities, and this is how I did it with my students. The objective was to just introduce them to the idea of zero waste, and the other steps that go along with it. They are so awesome at identifying the word and symbol for recycling, and most of them have made significant progress in sorting recyclable items and washing the dishes. It is very important to me to have the kids understand that they can always do more, so I introduced it in the best way I know how – with my BFFL, the Lorax.
The story I read to them was “How to Help the Earth, by the Lorax”. This is great to use, because it actually makes them think about what the other things that go into helping the environment other than recycling. Recycling is cool, but really you want to do the other 4 R’s before recycling anything. I used personal experiences to explain the 5 R’s in a way they can relate (Ex: When I really didn’t want that Christmas present, because I didn’t need another hoodie, or when I cut up Tshirts to make homemade cleaning wipes.) Then I showed them a video of me washing the dishes to help them get an idea of WHAT it actually looks like to reduce water waste.
Materials:
- SMARTboard
- Large Poster with Earth on it and numbers 1-5
- vocabulary words (index cards – refuse, reduce, reuse, rot, recycle)
Procedure: Teacher will read “I can Help the Earth by the Lorax” and discuss the order of the 5 R’s using a large poster. This will be referred to so students can be aware of reducing their waste “So this whole school year, we have been learning about recycling. I think we are pretty much recycling pros, but I think we need to work on being Zero Waste Pros now. In order for us to start doing that, we are going to learn some new words and act out what each of the words mean. We will identify and talk about what these actions will look like in our classroom, and I am also going to show you some videos on how I think it can look in our class. These next few weeks, we will be taking some footage so you can create your own video, but first we are going to have to practice what we are going to do! Are you ready to save the Earth with the Lorax?!”
When students are finished, my students danced to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heskCH-YADQ, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ZK5pntyNg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDL3xOEjAe8. (I always like to start and/or end in a dance or song, because it engages them, and dancing is fun and a great way to let out energy before having to concentrate on something important like saving the planet).
Questions to ask:
- Does reduce mean less or more? (less)
- What do you say when you refuse? (no thank you)
- Can you show me something we can reuse?
- What does it mean to rot? (compost) What can we put into the compost? (plant food)
I hope this helps you at home, school, or wherever you are in life. My biggest goal is for everyone to be aware and just ask the zero waste questions before throwing any trash out. This lesson is just the start to helping the planet and infusing learning in my classroom. Be sure to check out more posts coming soon!
