Activity: National Recycling Week: Garbage Gallery

Teacher preparation

What you will need: In preceding lessons, each student may collect and/or photograph enough ‘clean’ rubbish (e.g. plastic bottles, scrap paper, packaging, old shoes, empty pens) to construct an artwork. Alternatively, the teacher may provide the materials on the day by using the clean materials in school recycling bins.

Other materials needed: Glue, tape, pins and any other appropriate fixing materials, one copied worksheet for each student, images of garbage art and garbage shadow art (two are provided on the Student Worksheet, however find more by search for those phrases using Google Images) and a projector, smartboard or individual devices for display

Teacher content information: Planet Ark’s National Recycling Week started in 1996 to bring a national focus to the environmental benefits of recycling. This highly regarded annual campaign continues to educate and stimulate behaviour change by promoting kerbside, industrial and community recycling initiative. It

Thought starter: How can art help us think about our environment?

Part 1: Respond

Source: Colossal website

We can reduce rubbish destined for landfill by recycling and thinking differently about our waste management behaviours. These behaviours are driven by our beliefs (or lack of beliefs) about the value of things and of the environment. Look at some images of art made from rubbish. Some have been cleverly constructed to cast a defined shadow. The artists behind these pieces have based their work on the metaphor of ‘waste casting a shadow over the Earth’. Some of the artistic features and forms used in these artworks include:

Turn to the perso