Teaching environmentalism by the numbers

This Earth Day, teach your students the importance of protecting our environment with this classroom activity.

Snapshot
In this activity, students will understand their own contribution to environmental problems through an experiential exercise. They will measure their classroom garbage for one day and consider the impacts of this waste over a longer period of time. As a conclusion to the activity, students will make posters to raise awareness of garbage produced in the school, in hopes of encouraging their peers to waste less.

Rationale
Complex environmental issues have no easy solutions. But ultimately, the resolutions to these issues lie in the decisions of regular people. Each North American produces about 4.5 pounds of garbage each day (including commercial waste produced on their behalf). This number could easily be cut in half if we each make more environmentally friendly choices.

Objective
Students will draw a connection between their decisions and the amount of waste they produce. As a class, students will produce guidelines for reducing garbage output in the future.

Time
Three 60-minute periods

Materials
A bathroom scale, one day’s worth of classroom garbage, garbage bags, latex or rubber gloves, blackboard, chart paper

Steps

• On the day prior to the lesson, have students deposit all their garbage (including lunch garbage) into one bin, container or bag. (Note: If students do not eat in their classrooms, designate a separate garbage can in the lunch room or cafeteria.)
• Begin the lesson by showing students the container filled by the previous day’s garbage. Ask them to guess the weight of the garbage. Students can take turns picking up the container to estimate its weight.
• Briefly discuss the concept of landfills with the class. Ensure that students understand where their garbage goes after it’s collected. Share the 4.5 lbs. per day statistic with the class and explain the meaning of “commercial waste produced on their behalf” (materials that go into producing everything they consume).
• In front of the class, weigh the garbage on a household scale and record the number on the blackboard. To make the weight easier to understand, compare it to other objects with weights students might be familiar with.
• Multiply this number by seven to show students how much garbage their classroom would produce in one week. Multiply the number by 365 to find out how much garbage they would produce in one year.

For more on this and other classroom activities, visit www.freethechildren.com/educator.

Free The Children is the largest network of children helping children through education in the world, with more than one million youth involved in our innovative education and development programs in 45 countries. Founded by international child rights activist Craig Kielburger, Free The Children has an established track-record of success, with three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize and partnerships with the United Nations and Oprah’s Angel Network.