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Youth Education
Litter Is Waste Out of Place
Grades: K - 5
Objectives: Students
will pick up litter and discuss what it is, why it is where it is, where it
comes from, and suggest some methods to control it. Litter is a waste material
that escaped from the waste handling system. Litter is man-made or man-used
material.
Subjects: Social Studies, Science, Math, Home Economics
Methods:
There are seven main
places in our community where waste materials are most apt to escape:
- Home garbage cans
- Business and
commercial garbage cans and dumpsters
- Trucks with loads
improperly tied down or covered
- Construction or
demolition sites
- Loading docks and
commercial storage areas
- Materials thrown,
dropped, or blown from cars
- Materials thrown
or dropped by pedestrians
Most people
think of litter as coming from motorists and pedestrians. Many people are too
quick to blame children and young adults for all litter problems, but the
problem can come from many places in our community.
Procedure:
1. Discuss
where litter comes from. Ask: What is litter? Why is there litter? Where might
you find litter? How can you and your family help prevent litter?
2. Bring
in examples of different types of litter, identifying the location where the
litter was found.
3. Have the children save their lunch sacks or bring a grocery
sack from home. Take the children for a walk around the playground and the
neighborhood, picking up human-made litter. Teachers record items and where they
were found. On returning to the classroom, have the children empty their trash
collections onto pieces of newspaper. Have each child talk about where each
piece was found. Ask: What might have caused litter in that place? Why? How?
Make a list of responses on the chalkboard. Have the children categorize the
litter according to types of material and discuss whether it can be reused or
recycled.
4. Have
the children make a list of who, besides themselves, can prevent litter in their
neighborhood and school. Students may want to make a map of the neighborhood,
including the school grounds, indicating where the litter receptacles are
located. After discussion, the children could indicate on their maps where they
think litter receptacles should be located.
5. Many
communities are recognizing the sources of litter and are developing program and
educational material to teach people how to keep waste materials from escaping
and becoming litter.
Home
garbage - Use only
trash containers with tight fitting lids. Paper or plastic bags can be opened by
animals. Trash cans without lids or with loose lids can be knocked over by
animals and the wind can move the trash several blocks, or even miles.
Business
trash - Tight,
closed lids and even locks are sometimes needed.
Truck
loads - If loads are
not tied down, many dangerous materials fall or are blown from the truck. Air
pressures increase as trucks drive faster. Loose material is blown out of truck
beds. Many people don't think about putting on tarps and some don't know that
they are accidentally losing their load. Roads to the dumps are easy to follow
because of all the litter along the roadway.
Construction and demolition sites
- Fences around construction sites keep materials from blowing out into the
neighborhood. Putting waste materials into proper containers and tarping truck
loads keep construction sites clean and construction and demolition materials
off our roads.
Loading
docks - Keeping
storage bins or dumpster tops closed and the area clean keep this material in
place and away from the rest of the neighborhood.
Motorists
- Car litter bags and litter containers at rest areas, gas stations, and fast
food stores are both important to controlling auto littering.
Pedestrians -
Sidewalk litter receptacles and good habits help control this source of litter.
With all of
the above sources of litter, the two most important things are:
(1) People
knowing that they can be part of the problem or part of the solution,
(2) People
caring for the community's public health and quality of their environment.
Ask:
How can we prevent litter at school and in our community?
Pre & Post
Test Questions:
What is
litter?
Who causes
litter?
How and
where do waste materials escape to become litter?
In what ways
does litter affect public health and the environment?
Where might
you find litter? How can litter be prevented?
From Alabama
PALS Litter Education Activity Guide.
Litter Literature
Grade K - 2
Objectives: Students
will be able to: 1) describe the effects of littering; 2) realize that cleaning
up provides many benefits; and 3) simulate the roles of characters from a story.
Students will discuss and describe the characters in the story The Wartville
Wizard.
Method:
Students listen to a
story, discuss, and then portray the roles of the citizens in the story.
Materials: The book:
The Wartville Wizard by Don Madden (Aladdin Books, Macmillan Publishing
Company, 1993); writing materials. Available by order at most book stores ISBN
0-689-71667-2 or on line from:
www.amazon.com ,
www.Wal-mart.com ,
www.BarnesandNobel.com.
Vocabulary:
environment, litter, non-point source pollution, trash, waste
Procedure:
1. Introduce the term ENVIRONMENT. The environment is
everything around us. Our environment at school is different than our
environment at home. Ask students to name objects from their home and school
environments.
2. Discuss
the importance of keeping the environment clean. Ask students what happens when
the environment is not clean. Introduce the terms LITTER and WASTE. Explain that
litter is waste put in the wrong place (e.g., on the ground, on the road, etc.).
Ask the students, "What happens to some litter when it rains?" Explain that when
litter ends-up going down a storm drain, it is one type of non-point source
pollution.
3. Read
aloud the book The Wartville Wizard. This story takes place in the town
of Wartville. Wartville citizens are illegally dumping their trash and litter:
soda bottles under flowers, juice cans by mailboxes, and candy wrappers and
papers on the road side. Every day the trash pile continues to grow. One man
continues to clean the town litter, and one day, he realizes he has the power to
get rid of all the litter forever. He magically sends each piece of litter back
to the person who dropped it. The town has a meeting to decide how to handle the
problem.
4. Discuss
the book as a class:
- Describe the man's home. How was the inside of his home
different from the outside?
- Where was all of the litter that the old man found coming
from?
- How did he feel about all the litter? How would you feel if
the town was your home?
- What did the old man do with the litter?
- What happens after the old man got power over the litter?
- How would you feel if you had power over the litter?
- How would you feel if the litter stuck to you?
- What did the people of Wartville finally do?
- What would you have done if you had been a citizen of Wartville?
- How did the people of Wartville discover that the old man
had power over the litter?
- How did the townspeople solve their litter problem?
- What is litter?
- What can you do to help prevent other people from
littering?
- What does litter do to our environment?
- Where have you seen litter in your community?
5. Ask the
class to identify the main characters in the book The Wartville Wizard
(an old man, Barbette Swartley, the driver, Harvey Bender, Mr. Fullerton K.
Hardboard, Mrs. Mabel Botts, Dr. Melvin Splint, Wartville citizens, Jimmy
VanSlammer, the sheriff).
6. Ask the
student volunteers to pantomime the various people in the book. Read the story
again as the students pantomime.
Assessment: Have students describe the effects of littering and suggest
ways it can be prevented.
Enrichment
Have the students create costumes and write the script for a play of the book
The Wartville Wizard.
Enrichment: Plan a litter art fair. To enter the fair, students must
design a litter character using trash or litter. Display the litter characters
at school, a public library, or a local shopping mall.
From "Waste in Place," Keep America
Beautiful, Inc.
Dumping is Un-Natural
Grades K-5:
Objective: Students will understand the negative impact illegal dumping
has on the natural beauty of our state.
Subject
Areas: Science,
Social Studies, Language Arts
Vocabulary:
Illegal
dumping - the
disposal of waste at any location that does not have a permit from the Arkansas
Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ).
Reuse
- the use of a product more than once in its same form for the same purpose or
for different purposes.
Recycle
- the process of collecting materials from the waste stream and separating them
by type, remaking them into new products, and marketing and reusing the
materials as new products.
Compost
- the decomposition of organic matter into a product used to enrich or improve
consistency of soil for growing plants.
Materials: bags of garbage collected specifically for this activity,
gloves, trash bags
Procedure:
1. Plan an
outdoor activity (picnic, nature walk, outdoor story-time, etc.) at a nearby
park, nature trail, or on the school grounds.
2. Before
students arrive, have the garbage placed near picnic tables, play areas, or in
other visible areas. Take some out of the bags, spill it around the grounds.
3. Make sure
students have to walk, play, and sit down to eat near the unsightly garbage.
4. Note
student reactions to the garbage. Explain that it is illegal dumping. If they
don't want to eat or play in an area that is strewn with illegally dumped
wastes, neither will others. This could deter tourists or other visitors from
the area, as well as discouraging new industry from coming into the area, and
diminish property values.
5. Ask:
Where should waste go? Waste should ultimately end up in a permitted sanitary
landfill. However, the waste may first go from the household, school or business
to a transfer station and then on to a landfill. Many counties in Arkansas
do not have a landfill, so the waste may have to travel some distance to its
final destination in a landfill.
6. Ask: What
can be done to make our natural areas that have garbage illegally dumped on them
become cleaner, safer places to visit?
(1) Clean up the area - with adult supervision and using gloves, pick up all the
"illegally dumped" waste.
(2) Separate waste into different piles of plastics, paper, metals, etc.
(3) Can any of these items be reused? If so, how?
(4) Can any of these items be recycled? If so, how and where?
(5) Is there fruit and vegetable wastes that could be composted?
(6) Dispose of any remaining wastes properly.
7. Explain
that this situation was "set up", but there are many real illegal dumps sites
along our roadsides, in our parks, and near our rivers and streams,
8. Ask: what
can be done to eliminate these real illegal dump sites?
(1) Organized cleanups like the Pick Up Arkansas! Campaign set for April 1998.
(2) Make signs and posters to place in natural areas to discourage illegal
dumping.
(3) See if local government or sponsors can provide receptacles for trash and
recyclables.
(4) Write letters to local media providing education on proper
disposal/recycling techniques.
(5) Write letters to local officials asking for more enforcement action against
illegal dumpers.
(6) Help educate the people/citizens of your community about the dangers of
improper
and proper waste disposal.
Evaluation Questions:
- What is illegal dumping?
- How does illegal dumping spoil the natural beauty of Arkansas,
the Natural state?
- How does illegal dumping affect tourism and developing industry in
Arkansas?
- What is the proper way to dispose of wastes?
- What can you do to help eliminate illegal dumping?
Additional Reading:
"It Zwibble
& The Greatest Cleanup Ever"
by Were Ross & Wer Enko & Lisa Verenko, 1991
Published by Scholastic, ISBN-0-590-44840-4
730 Broadway, NY, NY 10003
"Katherine &
The Garbage Dump"
by Martha Morris
Published by Second Story Press, ISBN 0-929005-39-2
760 Bathurst Street
Toronto, Canada M5S 2R6
Developed by Phyllis Mooney,
formerly Northwest Arkansas Recycling Coordinator, ADPC&E; now Environmental
Coordinator with the Ft. Smith-Sebastian County.
Keep Arkansas Beautiful - http://www.keeparkansasbeaufitul.com
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