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Lesson Prep & Curriculum Alignment

Prep time: 10 - 15 minutes

Students will learn what kind of items are and are not recyclable. In a hands-on activity, they will work in small groups to sort
cards with pictures of common items into recyclables and non-recyclables, practicing their collaborative and critical thinking
skills. They will receive a handout to share what they’ve learned with their family and encourage recycling at home.

1 Display or print out the YES/NO handout to create a class discussion about items that can and cannot be recycled.
Print 1 deck of sorting cards per number of groups - before the lesson activity, you can have the students cut out
the cards themselves. Print and pass out the “Coloring Page” at the end of the lesson or send home as homework.

2 Prepare 2 small empty boxes with an opening at the top to create a recycling and waste bin for the activity, 1 set
of “bins” per group.

3 Display the Recycling Bin/Non-Recycling Bin slides for further discussion about why one bin is correct, and the other
is not.
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Lesson Prep & Curriculum Alignment

Lesson duration: 25 - 30 minutes
Prep time: 10 - 15 minutes

Key Learning Outcomes and Curriculum Alignment:

• Science - Earth and Human Activity: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or
other living things in the local environment. Things that people do can affect the world around them. But they can make choices that
reduce their impacts on the land, water, air, and other living things.
• Social Studies - People, Places, and Environments: Students study people, places, and environments and enables them to
understand the relationship between human populations and the physical world.
• English Language Arts and Literacy: Able to ask and answer questions about details in a literature text. Participate in collaborative
conversations with diverse partners about topics and texts. Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions. Use words and phrases
acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts.

SDG Alignment
Flexible and adaptive lesson

Lesson plans are designed to be flexible and responsive to the evolving needs
of your classroom. Lessons are editable and customizable to meet the different
individual student and classroom contexts. A PowerPoint version with teacher
instructions and a printable PDF lesson are available for download.
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Lesson duration: 25 - 30 minutes The Lesson

Lesson duration: 45 - 60 minutes

Introduce the lesson with a discussion of what students already know about recycling. Print or display YES/NO handout.
1
• What is recycling? • Are there things that cannot be recycled?
• Why do we recycle? • What things should not be put in the recycling bin?
• What kinds of things do you think can be recycled? • What are the “1-2-3’s” of recycling?

• Ask the students to get out their YES/NO handout.

• Show Recycling Bin / Non-Recycling Bin slides and ask why is one bad and one good? Allow them to look and identify reasons for each
picture based on their YES/NO handout.

2 Tell your students they are going to play a recycling “Fill The Right Bin” sorting game.
• Divide them into groups and give each group one recycling box and one waste box you created and a shuffled deck of cards containing pictures
of common recyclable and non-recyclable items. Have your students work as a group to decide which items are recyclable, and which are not.

When groups are done sorting the cards, they should put the ones showing recyclable items into their recycling box.

3 A whole-class activity.
• Review the cards in each group’s recycling box. If any items were incorrectly identified as recyclable, explain why, or ask if any student knows
why and have them explain. It may also be easier to write the correct answers on the board and have the groups check themselves. Confirm
that students understand why an item is recyclable or non-recyclable. See the next page for an alternate version of the recycling sorting game.

alternate version on next slide

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The Lesson
Lesson duration: 45 - 60 minutes

Alternative Version

1 Divide your students into 2 or 3 relay teams and have team members line up one behind the other.
• On the opposite side of the room, designate a “recyclable” bin and a “non-recyclable” bin for each team.

2 Distribute one deck of shuffled cards per team evenly among the team members.
• Explain how a relay works and that when it is their turn, each student on the team should cross the room and place a card into which space
(“recyclable” or “non-recyclable”) they think it belongs in and get back to their team as quickly as possible for the next team member to take a
turn.

You may want to put a twist on it – and keep things safe – by telling students they must hop or skip across the room rather than running.

3 When a designated amount of time is up or the first team has finished, the team with the most correctly identified cards wins.
 Prepare the PowerPoint presentation

When you are ready to present the lessons to your class click on Slide Show on the top menu bar then
select Presenter View. In Presenter view, you can see your notes as you present while the audience see
only your slides.

The notes appear in a pane on the right. The text should

wrap automatically, and a vertical scroll bar appears if
necessary. You can also change the size of the text in the
Notes pane by using the two buttons at the lower left
corner of the Notes pane.

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Glass jar PET Plastic bottle Shoes Metal can Light bulb Juice box Dirty napkin

Plastic bag Toys

Pencil Banana peel
Cardboard box Garden hose

YES NO
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YES NO
Always recycle: Never recycle:

Banana peel Dirty napkin Garden hose

Glass jar PET Plastic bottle

Light bulb Juice box Shoes

Cardboard box Metal can Toys Plastic bag Pencil

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Recycling bin
Clean

Dry

No smell

No plastic bags

No non-recyclables
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Non-recycling bin
Food

Dirty or wet paper and cardboard

Liquid in bottles

Dirty cups

Plastic bags
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The
3 Steps to
Recycling
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Step 1 Know what you can recycle.

Glass Jar PET Plastic bottle Cardboard box Metal can

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Step 2 Empty, clean, and dry before putting in the bin.

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Step 3 Put recyclables into the correct recycling bin.

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When we clean, dry, and recycle we can

make new things.
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Lesson duration: 25 - 30 minutes Next Steps

1 Tell your students they are going to play a recycling “Fill The Right Bin” sorting game.
• Divide them into groups and give each group one “recycling box” (a shoebox works) and one “waste box” you created and distribute the deck
of card handouts containing pictures of common recyclable and non-recyclable items for them to cut out.
• Have students cut out the cards in their groups.
• Have your students work as a group to decide which items are recyclable, and which are not.

2 Print and pass out the “Coloring Page” at the end of the lesson or send home as homework.
The coloring page is separate from the PowerPoint lesson and is a downloadable pdf file.