How Does Recycling Keep Our Town Clean and Protect Future Generations
1) Driving Question (12.5 points): How does recycling keep our town clean and protect future generations?
Does the DQ warrant in-depth study?
Is the DQ an authentic and relevant issue/problem for my students?
Is there more than one plausible solution to the DQ?
Does the DQ provide opportunities for students to evaluate, analyze, present, and defend their solutions? - Provide a brief introduction to your question as well
A brief introduction: How does recycling keep our town clean and protect future generations? First, what is recycling? Recycling is making waste into reusable resources. Now that we know WHAT recycling is, how does it keep our town clean? (by making waste turn into reusable things). This can protect future generations by giving them the option of having a clean world which they can breathe and move without waste being in their way.
Our driving question is “How does recycling keep our town clean and protect future generations?”. We believe this warrants in depth study because in order to understand recycling, one must research what recycling is, the benefits of it, and why we do it.
Recycling is a relevant issue for students because if recycling is not done, or not done properly, the earth can not benefit from it, and in turn, we cannot benefit from it. Studies have shown that recycling does benefit our planet and us by making resources reusable, such as glass, plastic, cardboard, and many more things we use daily.
We believe there is more than one plausible solution to our DQ. Our DQ is “How does recycling keep our town clean and protect future generations?” There could be many answers to this question. One might answer this by saying “Recycling keeps our town clean because there is not trash on the ground” while another may say “Recycling helps keep the town clean by reusing what we did not before to prevent waste”.
We believe our DQ does provide opportunities for students to evaluate, analyze, present, and defend their solutions. For example, a student could evaluate the benefits of recycling, analyze the benefit and product recycled, present their argument, and defend their solution to the problem.
2) Grabber (22.5 points): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CvYayV88kY
Does the story, article, video, announcement, or role play other resource hook the learner into asking more questions about the topic?
Does the grabber capitalize on novelty and / or high emotion situations?
Does the grabber establish authenticity and relevance?
Make sure to explain how this grabber would be used.
We believe the video does hook the reader into asking more questions about recycling. For instance, a reader could ask why do you need to bring a bag with you when you’re shopping? An answer to this question could be “So you can carry out your groceries to the car and house without using plastic bags. This reduces the use of plastic.” Another question prompted from the video/ song could be “Why should I separate my plastic, glass, and paper into different bins?” A good answer to this could be “We separate our recyclables so when they are recycled at a recycling plant, nothing gets mixed up and recycled together which could ruin a whole batch of recycling.”
Our grabber capitalizes on novelty. The song is fun and repetitive which will get the listeners attention and remain in the brain.
Our grabber does establish authenticity and relevance. It does so by being a real song and explaining recycling. It also warrants questions about how to specifically to recycle which can make it feel more authentic.
We would used our grabber to grab the attention at the beginning of class to introduce the topic of recycling. We would let the students watch the video and as hey picked up the lyrics, sing it with them. They could then ask questions which we would answer and let us get into the meat of our lesson about recycling and how it keeps our town clean and protects future generations.
3) Culminating Activity (65 points) Robots
How is the activity authentic?
Does the activity provide students with the opportunity to present and defend problem solution?
Does the activity require student collaboration?
How will I judge what students have learned from the activity?
You will likely need to create a rubric for this step and example materials.
Our culminating activity is about Robots. In this activity, students will bring in recyclables from their homes such as: cardboard boxes, milk jugs, pop cans, soup cans, plastic containers, metal containers, paper, etc. Once they bring the materials to class, we will let them build robots from the recyclables they brought in. They will be provided tape, glue sticks, glue, and staples as needed.
This activity is authentic because it is a genuine activity which we will make the rubric and grade accordingly; it is original.
The activity does provide students with the opportunity to present and defend problem solution. It does so by having an original rubric and each student will be graded from. The students will be able to present their robots to the class and get feedback from their peers and teachers. They will also be able to defend their project in a problem solution manner. They can say the problem (waste) and how they are forming a solution to it (recycling recyclables into robots).
The activity does not require student collaboration, though it is encouraged if prefered. For example, if students wish to collaborate and share materas such as cans, cardboard, etc., they are encouraged to do so. If students refer to work individually, they are also encouraged to do so. We believe students do their best when given the choice to choose their work environment e.g. partners or not.
We will judge what students have learned from the activity by assessing them with questions about their project. These questions could be: Why did you make a robot? What did you make it with? Why did you choose these materials instead of ___ (unrecyclable material)? What is recycling? Why should we do it? What can be recycled? What can not? Follow up questions to answers given as well.