Student Activity 3
Objective: Students will investigate the alternatives to plastic and design a campaign to encourage the use of reusable containers.
Essential Questions: What are the alternatives to plastic? What can I do to decrease the amount of plastic that I use? How can I encourage others to do the same?
Procedure:
- Investigate the alternatives to plastic especially in food packaging. You can assign different websites to different groups and do a jigsaw (each group shares what they learn).
- tp://www.savvymom.ca/index.php/newsletter/its_your_choice/2
- tp://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/108/plastic
- tp://environment.about.com/od/greenlivingdesign/a/school_lunch.htm
- tp://ezinearticles.com/?Drink-Safe—The-Dangers-of-Plastic&id=1269652
- tp://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=1280.php
- tp://environment.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=environment&cdn=newsissues&tm=123&gps=470_1051_1020_567&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.laptoplunches.com/
- The students will come to the conclusion that the easiest most cost effective way to reduce their personal plastic use is reusable food containers.
- How can they convince their families and others?
- Tell students that you are going to have a contest between all of the fourth grade classrooms. The classroom that reduces their food packaging trash by the most will win. I encourage using the concept of "winning by helping to save the planet" as the motivation rather than a tangible prize.
- The contest is for teams to create a campaign to convince their fourth grade homeroom to make the switch to reusable containers. They may choose to compose a song, poem, write a children's book, poster, commercial or anything that you deem appropriate. The teacher should approve student plans before they complete their project. Plans should include research and may apply to other homerooms as well.
- After the campaign has been deployed ask students if they think they made a difference. Which homeroom wins? How do you know for sure? Students should return to lesson one and collect trash, sort and graph results.
- Compare to original data and draw conclusions:
- Yeah! We made a difference! How can we reach more people? Could we convince the government to have stricter guidelines on the use of plastic in food containers?
- This campaign did not work. What else could we do?
Closure: Students have taken action to help the environment and protect their health. Reflect on the process of tackling a problem and how it feels to make a difference in the world.
Comments: