Environmental justice
If you have looked at my other lessons involving societal issues you have likely noticed that I don’t like to have a set conclusion we all come to. Thinking and reflecting is personal and adjustable depending on new experiences and information. I try not to limit my student’s reflections with my own expectations and preconceived notions. After all, we are all taking the journey together and my students have experiences and ideas that I have not been exposed to yet.
That being said, this is a video that I have used with early years to middle school. It’s just a short cartoon. I like to do a See, Think, Wonder alongside it.
I like that this video can be used for any grade level as there will be different takeaways from what we are seeing. For the younger bunch it usually gets us wondering where the garbage is all going where we live and the idea was kept more of a local idea. There were connections to those who compost at home and recycling etc. This is also a nice time to tie into the science concepts of different materials and start learning about making hypothesis.
A tie in to science and seeing what happens to the different materials in the Earth.
For a little older we discuss where the trash goes near us and also entered into a discussion about recycling itself and its impact (lesson on that shared to be shared later). Typically as students go to research about where the trash goes and who has to live with it, they will find articles about countries who get paid to take our trash. AND how some are trying to no longer accept the trash. Where does it go? Who produces the most? And best we start thinking of what can we do on an individual, school community, local, and global level?
One thing that also gets looked at is how are the lives impacted of those who have to live with garbage near them? Who is it that typically has to live near that garbage dump? Is there anything else happening in those neighborhoods? Can we tie this back to the basket-making simulation we did earlier?
