Design for Learning

Instructor: Autumn Combs

Area: Science

Title: Recycling Materials

Date: Day 4

Grade Level: 3rd

Estimated Time: 50 min

Standards Connection:
Describe ways to sustain natural resources, including recycling, reusing, conserving, and
protecting the environment.
Recognizing the impact of society on human health and environmental conditions
Learning Goals:
When given an interactive multiple choice Plickers quiz on recycling, students will correctly
answer both questions with 100% accuracy.
Evaluation of Learning Goal:
The teacher will use Plickers to create a web-based assessment for the end of the lesson. There
will be two questions on the assessment. One will have the students define recycling and the
other will have the student identify a way that you can know if an item is recyclable or not.
Students should correctly answer both questions. If a student incorrectly answers either of the
questions or both of them, they should be pulled for small group instruction so that
misconceptions can be cleared up.

Learning Design
Engagement:
Teacher will show a recycling symbol on slide 11. Can someone tell me what this symbol stands
for? If you were to see it out in public what would it make you think? Talk to your group about
this. Lets look at another picture. Teacher will turn to slide 12 to the picture of a landfill that was
used previously. What is this? Talk to your group about what it is and the impacts that it has on
the environment. Walk the room and listen to conversation about the landfill. Take notes about
what they are saying so that you can bring attention to it later. ______, what did your group say
the first picture was? Listen. A recycling symbol? Ok what does that signify? Listen. Ok, what
about the second picture? ______, what did your group say about this picture? Listen to group.
You are correct. This is called a landfill and it is where all of our garbage goes when we throw it
away. Remember that we talked the other day about the fact that landfills are full of pollution
and that they can harm the environment and humans too. Today we are going to talk about these
two things and how one effects the other.

Teaching
Get your 3 Rs organizer out and get ready to take notes. Remember that this organizer is going
to act like your study guide for the test that we are having at the end of the week so you need to
take good notes that will help you study. Wait on students to get sheet out, then get the plastic
bottle and paper products out. I have two items here and both of them have that recycle symbol
on them. Who knows what that means? Call on student. Yes that means that we need to recycle
it. When we recycle it we put all like items together and they get sent to a place where they take
the materials and turn them into new products. Turn to slide 13. This is a picture of plastic
products that were recycled and shipped to a recycling plant. At the recycling plant, it gets
packed together so that they can melt it down and make it into new products. Turn to slide 14.
Do you recycle at home? Talk to your group about some things that your family recycles? Let
students talk to each other about what they recycle at home. What are some of the products that
your family recycles _______? Paper? Good. What else? Plastic, yes that is another one. Can
you think of any others? Is there anything else that your families recycle? If no one answers,
offer some suggestions. At my house at Samford, we recycle cardboard too like the picture that I
have up here. The other picture is of glass bottles. You can recycle them too. Recycling is a good
thing because it prevents waste from being sent to the landfill like in this picture. The waste is
not good for the environment. It can harm animals and can be bad for people. Will you get out
your science notebooks real fast? We are going to need them for our next activity.
Practice:
Wait on students to get out their notebooks. Once they are ready, explain to them that you are
going to read an article and that they need to pay attention for things that they learned and things
that they still wonder. I am going to pass out an article that we are going to read. I want you to
read this article with me. As I read, I want you to be asking yourself questions like we talked
about earlier this week in reading. In order to do this, create a t-chart in your notebooks with
one side talking about what you learned and the other section talking about what you still
wonder. Give students time to create the t-chart in the notebook. Walk around during this time to
ensure that they are all on track and completing the assignment based on the instructions.
Remember, good readers ask questions, so as I read through the article for the first time, you
should be asking and answering questions that arise. Teacher will read the article out loud to the
class. Now that I have read it, I want you to talk to your group about some important ideas from
the text. What are some things that you learned about recycling from the passage? Go back to
the text and find evidence to support your learning. Keep note of your groups learning in your
science notebook. You will have the next 15 minutes to work on this. Teacher will walk around
the room asking students questions, listening to conversations, and taking notes of what is going
on. Set the timer for 15 minutes so that time is not wasted.
Assessment:
When the timer goes off, call students attention back to you. Back to me. It is time for us to
move on, so I need you to put your science notebook and article in your desk and get out your
Plicker card. Give students time to put away items that will not be used in the next section of the

lesson and to get out their Plickers cards out on their desks. Teacher will log into the Plicker
account on the computer to be projected onto the wall. Teacher should have camera ready to go
so that the answer choices can be scanned once they are made. Teacher should read first question
aloud to the class. Get ready for number one, recycling is using less of a resource, reusing
resources, or collecting used or discarded materials to make new products? Which one is the
correct answer? Scan the cards as students hold them up. Good, now lets move on to the next
question. What is one way to know if an item is recyclable or not look for a recycling label, you
can recycle everything, you can only recycle plastic? Give students time to answer this question.
As they begin showing this answers, scan their cards to be put into the system and graded. Good
work today with recycling. Now you will be aware of the recycling symbols in your everyday life.
Closure:
Now that we are finished I want to show you something. Pull out recycle stash. I have been
recycling this stuff to bring here for all of us to use. We are going to use the recycled things in my
bag and start working on some art work. We will only be able to use these things for our projects
though. We are using the recycled things to create something awesome instead of waste in a
landfill! Pass out items and allow students to start on their projects.

Resources and Materials:

-

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Google Slides Presentation

Three Rs graphic organizer
Projector
Clipboard with paper for notes
Plickers on computer
Student Plicker Cards
Plickers app on phone
Plastic bottle
Paper products
Article from http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/spacescience/water-bottlepollution/
Recycle items
Glue
Markers
Scissors
Science notebooks

Extensions/Accommodations:
J and S will receive an article with highlighted portions that are most important.
For an extension, P, L, and J will investigate the recycling program at RRE and find out why
there no longer is one. This will provide them opportunities to talk to adults and to form opinions
based on the information.

Reflection:
Of the nineteen students who took the recycling assessment, four of them did not achieve a score
that is considered proficient as defined by the lesson objective. These four students were out of
the room for the majority of the lesson and it showed in their test scores. Even though the data on
them is not completely valid, these students should still be pulled and retaught since they missed
the whole group instruction time.
If I were to do this lesson again, I would incorporate the brain pop videos in it that we watched at
a later date. These videos were very informational and the students enjoyed watching them. It
would have been a good way to incorporate more technology into the lesson and engage the
students even more in the material. I also would connect recycling to their lives even more by
talking about the fact that there are things that we use that are made from recycling materials.

Drinking Water: Bottled or From the Tap?

For every six water bottles we use, only one makes it to the recycling bin

Catherine Clarke Fox

If your family is like many in the United States, unloading the weeks groceries includes hauling
a case or two of bottled water into your home. On your way to a soccer game or activity, its easy
to grab a cold one right out of the fridge, right?
But all those plastic bottles use a lot of fossil fuels and pollute the environment. In fact,
Americans buy more bottled water than any other nation in the world, adding 29 billion water
bottles a year to the problem. In order to make all these bottles, manufacturers use 17 million
barrels of crude oil. Thats enough oil to keep a million cars going for twelve months.
Imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. Thats about how much oil was
needed to produce the bottle.

So why dont more people drink water straight from the kitchen faucet? Some people drink
bottled water because they think it is better for them than water out of the tap, but thats not true.
In the United States, local governments make sure water from the faucet is safe. There is also
growing concern that chemicals in the bottles themselves may leach into the water.
People love the convenience of bottled water. But maybe if they realized the problems it causes,
they would try drinking from a glass at home or carrying water in a refillable steel container
instead of plastic.
Plastic bottle recycling can helpinstead of going out with the trash, plastic bottles can be
turned into items like carpeting or cozy fleece clothing.
Unfortunately, for every six water bottles we use, only one makes it to the recycling bin. The rest
are sent to landfills. Or, even worse, they end up as trash on the land and in rivers, lakes, and the
ocean. Plastic bottles take many hundreds of years to disintegrate.
Water is good for you, so keep drinking it. But think about how often you use water bottles, and
see if you can make a change.
And yes, you can make a difference. Remember this: Recycling one plastic bottle can save
enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for six hours.

Recycling Plickers Questions

1. Recycling is
a. using less of a resource
b. reusing resources
c. collecting used or discarded materials to make new products
2. What is one way to know if an item is recyclable or not?
a. look for a recycling label
b. you can recycle everything
c. you can only recycle plastic

Recycling Plickers Questions Rubric

1. Recycling is
a. using less of a resource
b. reusing resources
c. collecting used or discarded materials to make new products
2. What is one way to know if an item is recyclable or not?
a. look for a recycling label
b. you can recycle everything
c. you can only recycle plastic

Student Work/Data

Student Work/Data

Natural Resources

Renewable Resource

Non-Renewable
Resource

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle