What a Waste

Activities

Suggestions on how programmes can be used in the classroom

Before Viewing

1. Ask pupils to keep a log of their 'energy use' for a day before viewing the programme. They should record the type of device using energy (TV, cooker, car), the type of fuel being used (electricity, gas, petrol) and the number of hours/minutes of useage. They should also record whether they alone were using the device, or if useage was shared - between how many people.

2. Ask pupils to carry out a home or school survey of energy efficiency. Are low power lightbulbs being used, are windows and doors left open unnecessarily in cold weather, are doors and window frames insulated, is heating turned up in empty rooms, etc?

3. Ask pupils to visit a local supermarket, and to write a report on packaging of fruit, vegetables and other products. How much of this packaging is necessary? An alternative way of looking at this issue would be for the teacher to bring a basket of shopping into the classroom, and remove unnecessary packaging. Discussion could follow.

4. Pupils could try to find out about their local authority's arrangements for waste disposal; Are landfill sites used? Is rubbish burned? Are recycling schemes in operation? To what extent do people use them? How does the local authority promote them?

After Viewing

1. Lead a discussion about energy use, based on the log you asked pupils to keep before viewing the programme, and ask whether it might be possible for pupils to reduce their own consumption of energy, or use energy more efficiently. Ask them, for example, if they travel to school in a parents car, is that journey 'necessary' - could they walk/cycle/take a bus. Is the car journey just to take them to school - or are parents going on to work/shop etc? Are siblings also being carried? Do they perhaps have a TV in their bedroom - and is it showing the same programme as a TV in the lounge? Are TV's and other devices left switched on (or on standby) when nobody is actually watching? Ask students to spend a day actively trying to reduce their personal consumption of energy, again keeping a log, and compare the 'before' and 'after' logs.

2. Invite pupils to complete the "25 Ways to Save the Planet" lifestyle quiz at www.cat.org.uk/information/howgreen.tmpl , to see how 'green' they are.

3. Invite pupils to try their hands at the 'Spaceship Earth' quiz at www.cat.org.uk/information/starqque.tmpl

4. Does your school recycle its waste? Is your school 'energy efficient'? Could pupils raise 'waste recycling' and 'energy efficiency' through a School Council or other forum? Could pupils be involved in designing a recycling strategy, or an energy efficiency strategy (eg, closing doors and windows, turning unnecessary heaters down or off) and monitoring the implementation of that strategy. Perhaps if the school succeeded in reducing energy use the money saved could be used to buy resources for the pupil's use.

5. Ideas about recycling for young people can be found on an American website www.grrn.org/kids_recycle/start_here.html