A load of rubbish
This collection is to support the House of Science 'A Load of Rubbish', https://houseofscience.nz but it is also useful for anyone looking at the issue of waste management and sustainability.
This collection is about waste management and introduces the concept of circular economy.
The New Zealand Ministry of Education Building Science Concepts books below support the understanding that materials can be classified by their properties.
Waste – a growing challenge!
These resources support students in levels 1–4 with learning about waste and recycling. Included are videos on Recycling, sorting technology and what we can recycle
Structure of landfills
For more on landfills try these activities:
- online labelling interactive or the paper-based version in this activity
- Looking at modern landfill systems
Turning old into new
This level 4 Connected article looks at where plastics and other materials come from and how we can minimise our ecological footprint.
Plastic is a wicked problem. It’s incredibly useful, but it’s also a huge environmental issue.
Thinking about plastic – planning pathways
This includes our interactive planning pathway – use this to begin a cross-curricular look at plastics. It contains pedagogical and curriculum information and curates a wide range of useful resources on the Science Learning Hub.
PET recycling and the circular economy
This video is an excerpt from Science and the Plastics Problem, directed by Shirley Horrocks and produced by Point of View Productions. The full documentary can be viewed here.
Flight Plastics recycling technology
This includes the video Flight Plastics recycling plant in action for a detailed explanation of the plastic recycling process and how they sort and recycle PET plastics.
DIY plastic recycling plant
This activity uses a Flight Plastics video and written resources to design and operate a PET plastic wash and recycling plant, loosely based on the Flight Plastics process.
It is suitable for middle and upper primary students.
What happens to our plastic bottles?
This activity uses the New Zealand Ready to Read books At the Beach and What Does the Tide Bring In? to introduce the PET plastic recycling process.
Rethinking plastics
New Zealand science organisations Royal Society Te Apārangi and the Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor have created reports and resources to help us rethink plastic.
Tracking plastics in our oceans
When we throw something away, how do we know where it goes? The Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge is developing online tools to help us find out. Ocean Plastic Simulator is an interactive computer tool that shows where plastic is likely to end up when it is dropped in the ocean.
You might also find the Sea science collection useful
It covers the learning criteria:
- Materials like plastics do not decompose but remain in the environment
- Plastics and other debris can disrupt marine food webs
- Our actions can make a difference
Environmental issues, such as marine litter, provide an ideal topic for authentic scientific inquiry and action
Citizen science
For help in using a citizen science project with your students see our article full of tips for planning your science programme and the Getting started with citizen science and Online citizen science webinars.
Use one of these citizen science projects to get your students to take action as part of a unit on sustainability. The projects ask people to photograph, geotag and classify litter.
The Plastic Tide – unit plan
This unit plan shows how teacher Dianne Christenson used the online citizen science (OCS) project The Plastic Tide as part of a year 2–4 unit to develop students’ science capabilities in a unit on sustainability.
The Plastic Tide – case study
Read about Dianne’s experiences implementing this unit as part of a year 2–4 unit on sustainability.
We hope you found this collection useful. Remember you can make a copy of it then edit to make it your own. After that you can also share it with others to collaborate together.
For more information on creating collections have a look at our Creating collections article.
If you have any questions, or want support finding resources, please email: enquiries@sciencelearn.org.nz.