Activity Introduction
Quick summary: Students investigate in small groups with a parent leader what happens to the different types of waste in the school.
Learning goals:
- Students recognise that there are several different types of waste in a school: rubbish, bottles and cans for recycling, paper for recycling, cardboard for recycling, food scraps and garden waste for composting, worm composting or fed to the chooks
- Students understand that there are several types of containers or bins used in the school to store these types of waste before they are either treated on site (compost bins or heaps, worm compost bins, chicken coop or rabbit hutch) or removed for treatment off site (recycling bins or bags, rubbish bins or skips).
Australian Curriculum content descriptions:
Year 1 English:
- Engage in conversations and discussions, using active listening behaviours, showing interest, and contributing ideas, information and questions (ACELY1656)
- Create short imaginative and informative texts that show emerging use of appropriate text structure, sentence-level grammar, word choice, spelling, punctuation and appropriate multimodal elements, for example illustrations and diagrams (ACELY1661)
- Construct texts that incorporate supporting images using software including word processing programs (ACELY1664)
Year 1 Science:
- People use science in their daily lives, including when caring for their environment and living things (ACSHE022)
- Represent and communicate observations and ideas in a variety of ways such as oral and written language, drawing and role play (ACSIS029)
Year 2 English:
- Listen for specific purposes and information, including instructions, and extend students’ own and others’ ideas in discussions (ACELY1666)
- Create short imaginative, informative and persuasive texts using growing knowledge of text structures and language features for familiar and some less familiar audiences, selecting print and multimodal elements appropriate to the audience and purpose (ACELY1671)
- Construct texts featuring print, visual and audio elements using software, including word processing programs (ACELY1674)
Year 2 Science:
- People use science in their daily lives, including when caring for their environment and living things (ACSHE035)
- Represent and communicate observations and ideas in a variety of ways such as oral and written language, drawing and role play (ACSIS042)
Syllabus Outcomes: ST1-11LW, ST1-9ES, ST1-4WS, EN1-1A, EN1-2A, EN1-3A.
Topic: Solid Waste
Duration of activity: 60 mins
Level of teacher scaffolding: High – This activity will take some preparation time for the teacher beforehand.
Resources required: A bucket for each group of students with the following items: plastic bottle, apple core, sheet of paper printed on both sides, small cardboard box, leaves, lettuce leaf, pair of long handled tongs.
Digital technology opportunities: Digital sharing capabilities.
Homework and extension opportunities: This activity includes opportunities for extension.
Safety: Students and adults follow the class safety code.
Keywords: Waste, school, recycling, compost, bins.
Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.
