Learning Opportunities with our service

Pledge To Recycle

1. Use waste audit data in Numeracy and ICT

• Plot the data using bar charts to compare recycling, composting and residual waste totals for different classes
• Compare this terms waste audit data to previous terms data - are some classes recycling more/less? Is the school recycling more/less? Is the school producing more /less waste? Suggest reasons for the differences
• Discuss data, "How can the school reduce and reuse waste as well as recycle and compost?

2. Compare waste audit data between schools - Numeracy/ICT/Geography

• School Waste Education Officers can supply waste audit data
• Suggest reasons why other schools are better/worse at recycling?

Waste Education

1. Investigate waste management systems across the world - Geography/Citizenship

• How do other countries deal with their waste?
• Compare UK with other European countries and USA
• What about developing countries? e.g. India/China 
• Compare different countries carbon/ecological footprints
• Debating global issues - how can we manage environments more sustainably?

2. Investigate how we used to deal with waste in the past - History

• Look at waste management from different periods in history - incorporate into topics such as WW2/Victorians/Romans/Saxons etc.
• How as waste changed over the last 50 years/100 years/500 years etc.?
• Investigate the history of paper making (follow on from paper making activity)

3. Investigate the science of composting - Science (plus Numeracy/ICT/Geography)

• Investigate the cycle of decomposition - compare/contrast with lifecycles of plants/animals
• How/why does compost help plants grow - set up growing experiments to compare plant growth with/without compost
• Plot results in bar charts - link to Maths/ICT
• How do other cultures deal with their organic waste - link to Geography

4. Investigate a waste related campaign (e.g. banning use of plastic carrier bags) - Literacy and Citizenship

• Evaluate a news article by a BBC journalist reporting the ban on polythene bags in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh. See ‘Polythene: bags of trouble’ activity available at www.globalfootprints.org.uk 
• Construct effective arguments for such a ban in the UK 
• Design a leaflet that tries to persuade people to support such a ban and use alternatives - consider who would object to such a ban and why and develop counter arguments that could be used against such objections

Useful Websites

www.recyclenow.org.uk National recycling campaign - useful for information on materials, waste facts and figures, seasonal campaigns

www.wastewatch.org.uk UK’s main waste education charity

www.zerofootprintkids.com Children friendly carbon footprint calculator - KS1/2

www.carbondetectives.org.uk Interactive site with curriculum links. ‘Kit’ enables and supports schools to calculate their own carbon footprint - KS1/2

www.globalfootprints.org/teachers/matrix.htm Information and classroom activities linked to wider environmental issues. Waste/recycling activities linked to literacy and numeracy - KS2