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How to Teach Recycling

In a Google project about Climate Change, the top 50 ideas included tips on recycling and how to promote it in the community. Mind you, these tips came from children of all ages from more than 80 schools around the world:¹

1. Have global warming/climate change as part of school curriculum. (This can be a good entry point to teach and discuss the importance of recycling.)
2. Encourage less use of paper by writing or printing on the back of recycled papers.
3. Plant more trees for carbon dioxide reduction in the atmosphere.
4. Teach recycling techniques in classes and school programs.
5. Make recycling compulsory in all public facilities like schools, parks and beaches.
6. For media companies, feature celebrities on TV doing public service announcements and promoting carpooling, walking, riding bikes, using public transportation, conserving electricity and recycling.
7. Wherever there are trash cans, place recycling bins near it.
8. Use newspapers as gift wrappers.

With this in mind, it is quite easy to promote the significance of learning and applying recycling to high school students. Recycling helps, but it helps all the more if understood thoroughly and executed properly by your students.

LESSON PLAN 1: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle discussion

Created by Wheatley High School’s Marva Ledwith, this is a project that encourages students to define the concept of reducing, reusing and recycling materials, to be aware which type of materials the 3Rs can be applied, and to create a personal plan of action.

How-To:
Divide your students into groups and have each group list down all materials that can be use-reduced, reused and/or recycled.

Then, have them brainstorm on the impact of recycling and other conservation efforts on the environment. Discuss questions like - Is it a waste of time? Is it worth the effort? Does it do anything to save the planet?

Next, let them think of specific ways to reduce, reuse and recycle, both through individual and community activities.

Lastly, have your students make a graph of their Personal Plan of Action. Instruct them to allot space for at least four activities and write description, target date, and impact for each corresponding activity.

Make them fill this out initially in class, and then encourage them to bring it home to involve their family members also.

LESSON PLAN 2: After the trash lecture

How-To:
Look up in advance a possible topic that can be the focus of your classroom discussion. Using the Internet, have them visit the website you chose, or hand out printed material on the said topic. Examples: Payatas landslide, why Styrofoam is not being encouraged in fast food restaurants.

After letting them read the details, discuss the cause, significance of these issues and the steps being taken to address them.

Next, divide your students into groups of three or five, and assign each an item usually thrown away, like rubber tires, newspapers, aluminum cans, computer parts, old toys, paint, glass, Styrofoam, old wood furniture, among others.

Have them research on the following points:

• Is the item biodegradable or non-biodegradable?
• If biodegradable, how long does it take to decompose?
• What happens to the item once thrown away (in step-by-step, chronological order)?
• How can it be recycled in any way?
• What are the environmental consequences of throwing this kind of material?

For homework, after the groups have completed their research, they must create a flowchart or diagram on what they learned/found out. These posters can be used for future classes’ reference, or as advertising materials to promote recycling in the community.

Notes:
Examples of recycling projects that could be interrelated to other disciplines include creating a piece of art made of recyclable materials (fine arts), researching on the effects of lead and toxic chemicals on the body (health), or a poster campaign on the 3Rs (communication).

Sources:

¹n. a. (n.d.) Global Warming Student Speakout. Retrieved October 28, 2007 from
http://exploreourpla.net/global-warming/campaigns/google-education-top-50-ideas-to-combat-global-warming.html
Ledwith, Marva. (n.d.) Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Retrieved October 28, 2007 from http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Projects/Star/Facilitators/MLedwith/environ.html
Zimbalist, Alison. (n.d.) After the trash? Retrieved October 28, 2007 from
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/19991221tuesday.html

(Published 05 November 2007, Smart Schools Program)