Activity Introduction

Quick summary: Students are challenged to reduce the amount of rubbish their family sends to landfill. This is primarily a homework activity.

Learning goals:

  • Students understand that a family can reduce the amount of rubbish they send to landfill through the 3Rs+C.
  • Students recognise that there are many environmental and social benefits of recycling and composting.
  • Students learn that there are many environmental benefits of cutting the rubbish that is sent to landfill (especially as it will reduce the amount of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas, from being formed in the landfill).

Australian Curriculum content descriptions:

Year 7 English

  • Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, selecting aspects of subject matter and particular language, visual, and audio features to convey information and ideas (ACELY1725)
  • Use a range of software, including word processing programs, to confidently create, edit and publish written and multimodal texts (ACELY1728)

Year 7 Science

  • Collaboratively and individually plan and conduct a range of investigation types, including fieldwork and experiments, ensuring safety and ethical guidelines are followed (ACSIS125)

Year 8 English

  • Create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that raise issues, report events and advance opinions, using deliberate language and textual choices, and including digital elements as appropriate (ACELY1736)
  • Use a range of software, including word processing programs, to create, edit and publish texts imaginatively (ACELY1738)

Year 8 Science

  • Collaboratively and individually plan and conduct a range of investigation types, including fieldwork and experiments, ensuring safety and ethical guidelines are followed (ACSIS140)
  • Communicate ideas, findings and solutions to problems using scientific language and representations using digital technologies as appropriate (ACSIS148)

Syllabus Outcomes: SC4-5WS, SC4-6WS, SC4-9WS, EN4-2A, EN4-4B. 

Topic: Solid Waste

Time required: This activity will need to be conducted over one month as a home activity. In addition, this activity requires one or two 48 min sessions for presentations and discussion.

Level of teacher scaffolding: High – assist students in the design of the activity.

Resources required: Art materials, computer with internet access, Student Worksheet.

Digital technology opportunities: Digital sharing capabilities.

Homework and extension opportunities: This activity has been designed to be conducted at home with each student’s family.

Safety: Students develop a Waste Safety Code for their family.

Keywords: Waste, home, family, safety, safety code.

 

Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.

Worksheets

Teacher Worksheet

Teacher preparation:

Overarching learning goal: Students are challenged to reduce the amount of rubbish their family sends to landfill. This is primarily a homework activity.

Teacher content information:

  • Reduce – buying and using things more carefully so that you produce less waste overall. For example, if you buy one large box of cereal instead of two small ones, that means you will have less cardboard packaging overall. Packing the right amount of food for your school lunch means that you will have less uneaten food to throw away after lunch.
  • Reuse – to use more than once for the same or a different purpose. For example, a girl might use a Ziploc bag for some biscuits for lunch and then wash the bag and use it over and over again to hold different sorts of snacks.
  • Recycle – the process of making something new from something that has been thrown away. The new product can be the same as the old one or something quite different. For example, a sheet of photocopy paper could
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Student Worksheet

How can you and your family to cut the amount of rubbish that it sends to landfill?

Getting started

1. Explain to your family that the challenge is a project that your class is working on at school, but you are asking for their help. The challenge is to see how much your family can cut the the amount of rubbish that it puts out each week in the rubbish bin and which goes to landfill.

2. Explain that everyone gains if we all cut the rubbish we send to landfill. Give some examples of the environmental and social benefits of recycling, home composting and cutting the amount of rubbish sent to landfill.

3. Work with your family to develop a waste safety code for your home. Some important points could be:

  • Always use gloves to handle any form of waste.
  • Don’t touch bins or their the contents with your bare hands.
  • Wash your hands after any waste activity. 

 

At the beginning

1. On the night that your family puts out its rubbish and recycling/green waste bins, look inside each

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