In the rest of the week following Earth Day, it was time that the education group carried out our Earth Week program at TZ Intermediate School in Greencastle with the 4th grade students. We had all our lesson planned out, all the materials together, and it was time to put it to the test.
The workshop was well planned out. We had each of the 4th grade classes for one hour, one to two classes at a time depending on the day and we divided the hour into three twenty-minute activities. The first twenty minutes was dedicated to an activity we created that was a recycling relay. The students were placed into groups of 4-5 and each group was given a plastic bag full of various recyclable and non recyclable items and their task was to take turns running an item from the bag to either the trash bin or the recycling bin. After all the groups finished, we went through the bins and checked to see how accurate they were and if something were in the wrong bin, why it belonged in the other one. The students generally seemed to enjoy running back and forth from the bins, and they were attentive during the debrief to see where certain items that can be more confusing to place such as glass, Styrofoam and some unnumbered plastics. In the next twenty minutes we had them sit in groups and we told them about plastic use, how plastic affects animals and their habitats, and plastic reduction. We also showed them one of the Precious Plastic videos and told them about Precious Plastic DePauw and how we’re going to be able to recycle our own plastic next school year! They were excited to learn that they would be able to recycle their own plastic and make things out of it and hopefully go on a field trip next year as 5th graders to see the workspace.
One thing we were sure to include in our program with the 4th graders was discussion. After we did the recycling relay, we went through the lifecycle of plastic and how only a small percentage of it is recycled. Knowing this, we wanted to emphasize with the students how important it is to reduce the amount of plastic we begin with, so we had the students discussing in their groups about ways to use less plastic. It was interesting to hear their responses, some accurate and some more creative, but by doing this brainstorming we felt that they were able to take more away from the lesson all together. The biggest takeaway I had from the workshop was probably having the experience of going through the process of creating a lesson plan and how much detail goes into it. We had our program planned down to the minute! It was so interesting to see how it played out each day a little differently with the different classes and where the discussions went.
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