Investigating Landfills
Environmental Justice
Topic: Landfills
Lesson Plan #4
Grade Level: ¾
Essential Question: What is the relationship between pollution and privilege?
Guiding Question: Why is pollution/toxic material dumped in one area rather than others?
Standards MMSD
Standards NCSS
People, Places and Environment
Materials
Goals
Students will be able to:
Procedure:
Closing
Have the students fill out an exit ticket before they leave the class with a response to the following questions:
Extra Activity: Plan a trip to the local landfill. Have students make observations and describe what they smell, hear, feel and see.
Assessment
Topic: Landfills
Lesson Plan #4
Grade Level: ¾
Essential Question: What is the relationship between pollution and privilege?
Guiding Question: Why is pollution/toxic material dumped in one area rather than others?
Standards MMSD
- Behavioral Science: Grade 3
- 8. Apply and practice skills of conflict resolution (persuasion, compromise, debate, and negotiation).
- 9. Recognize the commonalities of global culture.
Standards NCSS
People, Places and Environment
- 2. Examine the interaction of human beings and their physical environment, the use of land, building of cit- ies, and ecosystem changes in selected locales and regions;
- 3. Consider existing uses and propose and evaluate alternative uses of resources and land in home, school, community, the region, and beyond.
Materials
- Class garbage can
- Throw blanket/tarp
- Plastic
- Where does the garbage go? By Paul Showers
Goals
Students will be able to:
- Understand where their trash goes when it is thrown away.
- Discuss the positives and negatives to local landfills.
- Participate in-group discussions and create a list with the class.
- Research exporting of hazardous waste and participate in a debate.
- Effectively communicate their feelings on the topic.
Procedure:
- Introduction: Take the classroom trash and set it aside for about a week while it accumulates a variety of trash items (throw the recycling into the same bin). To start the activity take the garbage can and dump it out onto a throw blanket or a tarp. Ask the students where they think all this trash goes? Remind them of our previous introduction to landfills.
- Trash: Take the trash and using plastic gloves separate the contents. So that they are laid out and easy to see, talk to the class about the different things in the garbage and how they were previously used before being thrown away. The separate the trash based on what the students think should be recycled and what should be thrown away. Discuss the terms recycle.
- Read: Read the book: Where Does the Garbage Go? By Paul Showers. This will be a short introduction to landfills.
- Explain that some of it goes to landfill which is a dump designed to collect trash and keep it separated from the surrounding environment. A plastic liner keeps dirty liquids in the landfill and stops them from spreading to neighboring land and into streams or groundwater. Each day a layer of soil is spread over the landfill to cover the day’s trash.
- Ask the students if any of them have seen a landfill before? Make a list on the board of the positive things about landfill use and the negative things. Students should come up with things like: they smell bad, there is garbage, we need somewhere to put our trash…etc.
- Explaining the correlation: Explain to the students that like the things they listed, there are downsides to landfills. They do smell and the garbage from them sometimes blows onto neighboring properties. Sometimes even with the plastic lining the toxins leech into the water system which can cause groundwater contamination. This is why the neighborhoods surrounding landfills typically are what we call lower income areas. Ask a student in the class to describe low income areas from the previous discussion.
- Alternative: Explain to the students that not all of our waste goes to our local landfills. Some of the materials that we throw away gets transported across the world to what are called third world countries. Many of the countries used electronics, such as t.v’s and old radios are sent to these countries. Here people suffer from the effects of having these materials dumped near their homes. Many people get sick from the materials and they leak fluid into the ground, causing more problems.
- Debate: Split the class in half and give each group a side: one FOR transporting our waste overseas and the other AGAINST. Allow the students time to research in the computer lab (this part of the activity may need to be extended a few days) and discuss with their group. Instruct the students that they are to prepare their argument for debate and that every member should speak at least once. Conduct the debate and have the students act in a professional manner. After the debate hold a discussion with the students:
- What do they believe, regardless of which side?
- How did they feel debating on a side they may have not agreed with?
- What is something they learned that surprised them?
Closing
Have the students fill out an exit ticket before they leave the class with a response to the following questions:
- Are landfills good or bad and why?
- Should we export our hazardous waste elsewhere?
- What are alternatives?
Extra Activity: Plan a trip to the local landfill. Have students make observations and describe what they smell, hear, feel and see.
Assessment
- Informal assessment: When the students are participating in the debate record in grade book their participation and content of their points.
- Formally: The exit ticket will act as formal assessment in the understanding of the content of the lesson.