Up for a rescue mission? Taking responsibility to reboot, recycle and reuse with this Spotlight on your world.
Topics included in Reboot, Recycle, Reuse include:
- Air Pollution
- Energy Sources
- Extinction
- Fossil Fuels
- Natural Resources
- Nuclear Energy
- Fighting Hunger
- Global Warming
- Greenhouse Effect
- Organic Food
- Population Growth
- Recycling
- Water Pollution
We put a request out last month for any recycling ideas you’ve used in school so we were really pleased when David Rogers (@daviderogers), Curriculum Leader for Geography at the Priory School in Portsmouth, sent us this super cross-curricular recycling lesson idea. Let us know if you use it!
David Rogers’ Recycling Lesson Idea: “We do this at my department, and are always really surprised at the fantastic ideas!”
“This lesson aims to get young people involved in changing their school community. Through a geographical enquiry, pupils will investigate the current state of recycling in the school and suggest improvements to the Headteacher.
To start: Investigate the ideas behind recycling. A good introduction is the BrainPOP UK movie on Recycling.
It would also be a good idea to follow up the idea with the POPquiz.
The key question to consider is whether recycling is a good idea. Use the Learning Event Generator to give the class some random choices of how to present their argument.
The next stage is to discover whether recycling goes on in your school. This takes the place of a Doorstep Geography investigation. Expanding some of the ideas covered in the BrainPOP movie, pupils work together (getting in some nice PLTS action) to create a questionnaire and data collection strategy.
For example, pupils could:
- Count the number and type of recycling facilities that the school has
- Find out what local facilities for recycling there are. You could even organise a trip to a recycling centre or get a guest speaker to come in. This is important, as different local authorities have different approaches to recycling.
- Speak to key staff such as the catering manager, curriculum leaders, senior leaders…
- Question their peers about recycling habits
After this, the class should be able to crunch the numbers in order to present their data. What have they found out? Is your school good at recycling?
I then give my classes a number of options. In order to link in to Citizenship, we give each class a real budget in order to run a campaign. This could be either a campaign to reinforce the recycling message, or to suggest how the school could do better at recycling.
Get the class to decide on ideas. For example, will they create posters or send emails to the Head? The budget covers things like photocopying and gives a realistic insight into enterprise – how effective will their campaign be? Pupils may find that staff do not recycle because of a lack of facilities at school. They could campaign for better facilities.
This is a simple idea that extends some of the ideas behind the BrainPOP movie and empowers students to take an active interest in their community.
By learning about responsible protest, they become better citizens!”
We’d love to hear the ideas your students come up with. If you’re not based in a school, try this idea out at home. Instead of suggesting improvements to the Headteacher, how about suggesting improvements to parents?
To encourage you to get started, we’ve produced a Reboot, Recycle, Reuse poster especially for this Spotlight:
Click image to start download
Download and pin it up at school or at home so you always remember Tim & Moby’s tips on being green.
P.S. You will need a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the poster. Download the latest version here: http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/
