National Recycling Week: My Classroom Waste - Year 1

Activity Introduction

Quick summary: In this activity students work together to identify where their waste comes from. They decide if various classroom items are able to be ‘reused’, ‘recycled’, ‘composted’ or if it is ‘waste’. They take responsibility for the waste generated by their classroom including managing a reuse box.

This lesson has been developed as part of the Schools Recycle Right Challenge for Planet Ark’s National Recycling Week. Register your lesson or other activities so they can be counted towards the national achievement and to receive other free support materials.

Learning intentions:

Students recognise the names and components of different waste materials.
Students learn to sort and name a variety of waste materials.

21st century skills:

Australian Curriculum Mapping

Year 1 Science

People use science in their daily lives, including when caring for their environment and living things (ACSHE022)

Year 1 Geography

The natural, managed and constructed features of places, their location, how they change and how they can be cared for (ACHASSK031)
Reflect on learning to propose how to care for places and sites that are important or significant (ACHASSI026)

Year 1 English

Engage in conversations and discussions, using active listening behaviours, showing interest, and contributing ideas, information and questions (ACELY1656)
Use interaction skills including turn-taking, recognising the contributions of others, speaking clearly and using appropriate volume and pace (ACELY1788)

Syllabus Outcomes: GE1-1, GE1-3, ST1-11LW, ST1-9ES, EN1-1A.

Topic: National Recycling Week

Time required: 60 mins

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – keep an eye on students as they practice the 3Rs in their classroom.

Resources required: Classroom containers for rubbish, recycling and a paper reuse box, writing and drawing materials; compost bucket optional depending if the school has a composting system. Optional: items of waste – small plastic bottle, large glass jar, piece of paper, aluminium can. If you don’t have access to these items you can draw them on the board instead.

Keywords: Rubbish, reuse, recycle, waste, compost, aluminium, steel, glass, plastic, code

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

These Planet Ark resources were developed by Cool Australia with funding from the Alcoa Foundation.

Worksheets

Teacher Worksheet

Teacher Preparation

Overarching learning goals: In this activity students work together to identify where their waste comes from. They decide if various classroom items are able to be 'reused', 'recycled', 'composted' or if it is 'waste'. They take responsibility for the waste generated by their classroom including managing a reuse box.

Teacher content information: We can expect students in primary school to take responsibility for the management of classroom waste. One of the most important concepts for them to develop is the orderly use of a paper reuse box. They will need to decide what paper goes into the box and what paper should go into the recycling box (each piece of paper that becomes waste will need to go into the reuse box if the back can be used, and the recycle box if it can’t be reused). It must go in the rubbish bin if it has been contaminated by food.

Hot tips: If your classroom doesn't already have a paper reuse box (for paper that has been used only on one side and

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Student Worksheet

Watch this clip to find out what happens to waste when it gets recycled:

Sorting Your Recycling - Video 1 from Cool Australia on Vimeo.

Watch this clip about how students from one school make less waste at school:

Managing Classroom Waste - Video 5 from Cool Australia on Vimeo.

Your job is to decide if the following items are able to be 'reused', 'recycled', 'composted' or if it is 'waste'. Write your answer next to the picture then colour it in.