Week 1: What is Recycling?

This week's activities will focus on establishing what you already know about recycling based on what you've seen in your home, school, and community.

Agenda:

1. Introductions: Meet your educator and classmates!
2. Google Classroom: Visit classroom.google.com. Click the plus sign in the top right corner and select "Join Class." Enter the code your educator gives you.
3. Warm-Up Question: Answer the questions your educator posted on Google Classroom: "What is recycling?" "Why should we recycle?" "Do you think you know how to recycle?" You may use the image carousel or the word cloud below for inspiration.
4. What do you already know about recycling? You have two options for the next activity:
   • Poster Activity: Use either Google Keep (better for freehand) or Google Drawings (better for text) to make a poster or drawing that answers the set of questions below.
   • Word Cloud: Make your own word cloud with the names of all the items you recycle and compost at home and at school. For example: Milk cartons, aluminum cans, old newspapers, apple cores.
   • Make sure to upload your poster or word cloud to the assignment in Google Classroom. Your educator will show you how.
5. Where do our recyclables and trash go? Watch the 2016 RISE video below (specifically 7:05-10:56)

Questions for Poster/Word Cloud Activity:

1. What happens when people don't recycle?
2. What does this look like?
3. Have you seen examples of this in your school, home, or community?
4. What are some solutions you can think of to raise awareness about recycling? What about a solution to limited landfill space?

Use the links below to access either Google Keep, Google Drawings, and the Word Cloud site. Remember to title, save, and upload your work!

Google Keep

Google Drawings

Word Clouds

"Homework Assignment" for next week: Find 3-5 recyclable materials from your home, such as empty cereal boxes, plastic beverage bottles, etc. (no organics or glass; only paper, plastic, cans, and clean trash such as soft plastic bags and dry food wrappers) and bring them to next week's meeting.

Optional activity for at home: Take some recycling photos! Find examples of recyclables around your home, school, and/or neighborhood and snap a picture. Or even take some photos of recycling systems in public places such as grocery stores and parks. Make sure to ask permission when appropriate. Store the photos in a Google Drive folder. You'll be referring back to these photos at the end of the program. Feel free to take as many photos as you'd like throughout the eight weeks.

Click through the image carousel to view photos of the recycling process.

1. A school recycling station with a trash can, a blue rigid plastics/glass/cans cart, and a green paper cart.
2. A school dumpster, where miscellaneous garbage is stored until a garbage truck comes by to pick it up.
3. School recycling carts on the curb, ready for pickup.
4. A garbage truck on its way to the landfill.
5. Paper recycling at a local recycling facility.
6. Plastic, glass and cans at a local recycling facility.
7. A pile of compost at an organic waste facility, after the food waste has been processed.
8. A mound of garbage at the county landfill. About 130 trucks of waste are brought in each day to be buried.
9. Old toilets to be disposed of at the landfill.
10. A bin of used aerosol sprays. These cannot be simply thrown in the trash and require special procedures to be disposed of.

Use the word cloud below as a word bank to help you generate ideas for either of the question sets.

Check out the RISE Student Board's video below to learn where our recyclables go.

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