Title: Trash Turned Treasure Grade level: 1st Grade Source/Name: Lindsey Hall National Standards/ACOS:

Describe uses of recycled materials. Examples: manufacture of paper products from old newspapers, production of mulch from trees

Objectives: Students will list or illustrate items they throw away on a daily basis. Students will state in their own words what recycling is and discuss uses of recycled materials. Students will describe ways to reuse the items they illustrated for another purpose. Each team of students will create and present to the rest of the class a new use for an empty plastic bottle. Procedures Materials: Butcher paper Markers and crayons Plastic Bottles Various items for new bottle creation (construction paper, newspaper, straws, scraps of cloth, Popsicle sticks, glue, masking tape, yarn, plastic bags, rocks/pebbles) Scissors Images of labels, or actual labels, that states it was made of recycled materials

Accommodations: Students with disruptive issues will be arranged into different groups. Students with trouble seeing the board will be moved to the front of the class. Safety Considerations: Students will use round-tipped scissors to make their new bottle creations. Engage (5 minutes): Group students into teams of three or four. Give each team butcher paper and allow them to list or illustrate items they throw away on a daily basis. Students will be give 2 minutes for this activity. After the lists are completed, a quick discussion will take place about the items each group decided upon and a list will be placed on the Promethean board. Since the students will be thinking about trash, I will ask them, "Is trash ever reusable?" This will help students start thinking about recycling. Explore (10 minutes): 1. Students will be told they are now members of the Environment Investigative Police. Part of their job is to figure out what type of material(cardboard, paper, plastic) the label came off of. 2. Labels will be distributed to the teams with more butcher paper. Explain that the labels came off of items that were made of cardboard, plastic, or paper, and their job is to group the labels together by what they think the items were. Students can list or illustrate their ideas on the butcher paper. 3. Have students describe how they decided which labels belonged to each group. They should identify any of their thought processes or any information they read on the label.

Explain (5 minutes): Ask students to take all of the labels and arrange them into the three groups they believe the item was made of (cardboard, plastic, paper). What do all of these labels have in common? The labels came off of items that have been recycled. What does recycle mean? Recycle means to take something that you do not need anymore and make it into something else that you can reuse. People recycle things instead of throwing them away. Why would you not want throw everything you use away? If everyone threw away everything they use, our landfills, or places where I trash goes, would become too full and would start to take up our living space. On average, every American throws away about 4.5 pounds of trash which is over 1,600 pounds each year. Americans throw away 251 tons of trash in one year or 502,000 pounds. (Retrieved from http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/human-footprint/trash-talk.html) What symbol on labels tell you that an item is recyclable or has been made from recyclable material? The symbol that will tell you something can be recycled or has been made of recycled materials is a green triangle made from arrows. (Show the symbol on the Promethean board) Have students select one of the labels to look at a second time. Ask them to point out the recycle symbol on their label. Elaborate (15 minutes): Students will direct their attention back to the butcher paper where they listed the trash they throw away each day. Students will take five minutes to add a description to those items about a way they could reuse them. Each team of students will be given an empty, clean, plastic bottle. They are to brainstorm and create a way to reuse the bottle by adding supplies from the table with the materials listed above in the material list. Each team will be given ten minutes to develop and make their new use for the bottle before each group presents their creation to the rest of the class. Evaluate: Students will be evaluated based on their participation in sharing ideas, participation in working on the "new bottle", and presentation of their creation.

Grading Rubric on following page.

Rubric for New Bottle Creation Group Brainstorming Observation 3 Actively participated and communicated with group members respectively 2 Was actively participating from time to time 1 Shared only a few ideas, but mainly listened to others 0 No ideas offered/No Participation Group Work/Development Observation 3 Actively participated and evenly shared responsibilities with others 2 Actively participated from time to time 1 Only participated when asked 0 No Work Completed Group Presentation 3 Comments contributed were solely on topic and relevant 2 Comments contributed were both on and off topic 1 Comments contributed were off topic 0 No Contribution to Presentation