Lesson on Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Aug 18th, 2008 by learningumbrella
It turned out that sewing all of those shopping bags was worth it. I’ve had so much great feedback from the parents and kids who did that lesson, and the kids were so excited to have their own personalized shopping bag. So, even though it was a huge amount of prep to put into one lesson, I’m glad I did it.
The whole lesson plan for this Reduce, Reuse, Recycle badge (the Respect for Nature Badge from Earth Scouts is what they actually earned):
We read Recycle out loud. It’s a very good book with lots of good information about what happens to each type of material, but it was a bit too long for the very youngest children. Recycle Every Day is better for preschoolers.
Then we unpacked a garbage bag I had prepped for the lesson. It was full of clean stuff, like diapers, pop cans, different types of plastic, etc. I read that the average American generates 4lbs a day of trash, so I aimed for that amount. The teacher brought out my bag, told the kids that was about how much the average person makes in a day, and then dumped it out. Each kid took a turn picking out something that could have been recycled, and then we talked about how to reduce the rest of the trash.
The next week we fabric painted on the shopping bags, after telling the kids that plastic shopping bags frequently end up in the trash. I brought my personal collection of stencils and paint stamps, and we also had paintbrushes, squeeze bottles, and fabric markers. The bags turned out cool!
