Waste Reduction

Current event:

What if we could put our plastic trash to good use?

Grand Challenge:

Understanding and sustaining a biodiverse planet because the plastic waste has to do with the planted and the biodiversity.

Summary:

In this article it talks about how much waste we have in plastic trash and it talks about all the good things that we could be using the plastic for instead. It gives you many ideas about what can be replaced to save the landfills and how you can avoid using so much plastic in your everyday lives.

Lesson:

The students would be in charge of creating their own environment and adding plastic to it. By doing this, they will be showing you what the plastic will do to the environment. Then students will present what they came up with and create a presentation to show everyone. Then students will decide something they want to do to make the school/community aware of. Whether it is recycling bins in the school or communities.

Strategy:

The strategy I would use to teach this is a turn and talk. By doing this, the students could read the article turn to a neighbor and share what they took away from the article. They may pick up something that the other student didn’t pick up on. From doing this formative assessment you could walk around and listen in to conversations to see what the students are taking away from the article.

Misconceptions:

• students veer away from only plastic and into littering garbage more
• What saving plastic can do

Other ways taught:

Another way I seen this taught was the classroom as a whole created an environment and watched it all throughout the school year. I kind of got my idea off of it but giving the students free rein to how they want to do the lesson and what they want to take away from it.

Standard:

LIFE SCIENCE content standards for third grade are that each student will:

· construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all

· use evidence to support the explanation that traits can be influenced by the environment

· use evidence to construct an explanation for how the variations in characteristics among individuals of the same species may provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing