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Grade Level:  K-12

Essential Questions:

  1. What is litter?
  2. Why do people litter?
  3. What happens to litter in the environment?
  4. How does litter affect our visual environment?
  5. How do we teach others not to litter?

Objectives:

  1. Scenic America Principles of Scenic Conservation #6: Teach young people to value the visual environment and to create and respect places of beauty.
  2. Students carry out a litter audit of their school/community
  3. Students understand the negative effects of litter on the environment
  4. Students design an educational campaign about litter and the importance of the visual environment

Background:

According to a 2009 Keep America Beautiful Litter survey “Over 51 billion pieces of litter appear on U.S. roadways each year. Most of it, 46.6 billion pieces (91%), is less than four inches [long]. That’s 6,729 items per mile of roadway.”  Littering remains a pervasive problem in our cities and towns whether it’s on major highways or neighborhood streets.  Litter not only costs taxpayers money in clean-up time and energy; Keep America Beautiful citing $11.5 billion annually, but it also has a detrimental effect on our local and global environment.

Litter can end up in our waterways and not only cause contamination of water systems, but also harm to animal life.  Land animals, birds and sea life can mistake litter for food or become entangled depending on the type of litter.

The top ten types of litter and their frequency as cited by the litter survey are: (https://www.kab.org/sites/default/files/LitterinAmerica_FactSheet_LitteringBehavior.pdf)

About 85% of littering is the result of individual behavior and continued education and campaigns are needed to educate individuals on why they should not litter.  Town-wide campaigns to increase the number and type of receptacles available can decrease the amount of litter.  Town-wide clean ups can help raise awareness to the issue.

Litterati is an app designed to capture real-live data on litter in communities and uses that data to work with organizations and businesses on more sustainable solutions.  Litterati is powered by everyday people going about their everyday lives.  https://www.litterati.org/#home

Using the Litterati map, students can look to see if there is data in their community.  Zooming in will allow individual entries to appear as they were entered into the system. See below for an example of what you could see.

Teacher Preparation:

  1. Gather images of litter in your community into a slideshow to use in the introduction activity or gather age appropriate images off the internet.
  2. Include the essential questions in the last slide.
  3. Procedures are sorted by grade level, but modify according to your classroom resources and students.
  4. Videos to choose from:
    1. https://youtu.be/4pbXLw6NDBM (Grades K-5)
    2. Litterati Founder, Jeff Kirschner, speaks to he came up with his litter tracking app and how it is used to benefit communities across the globe: https://youtu.be/es4w3WUcrN0 (Grades 6-12)

Procedures:

Grades K-5

  1. Choose one or two images from your slideshow to present to your students.
  2. Ask the students to call out items that don’t belong.  Make a list for all to see.
  3. Ask students to brainstorm how those items got there.
    1. People
    2. Water
    3. Other animals
  4. Introduce the term “litter” if students have not already started using the term.  Litter is trash that is left lying in an open or public space.
  5. Ask students to explain how these images make them feel. Happy? Sad? Angry?
  6. Have students watch this short video on why we should not litter https://youtu.be/4pbXLw6NDBM
  7. Talk to students about the dangers of litter to our sense of place (how it makes us feel about where we live), visual environment (how it looks in our environment) and the dangers to waterways and animals (can contaminate water and hurt animals).
  8. Tell students they will be doing a survey of the litter around their school.
  9. Use the Litterati map (https://map.litterati.org/globalmap/) to see if there is any data captured in your school’s neighborhood.
  10. Students will then go on a walk to find and pick up litter around their school.  Students should be provided with gloves to gather litter safely.
  11. Students should use the data sheets provided to track the type and amount of litter.
  12. Returning to the classroom, students should analyze their data.
    1. How much litter did they find?
    2. What was the most common type of litter found?
    3. How do they think that litter made its way to their school? (Wind, water, individual)
  13. Students should design a poster/flyer educating their school and community about littering and show residents ways they can reduce litter in their community.  Students can choose to use the litter they found around their school on their posters.

Extensions:

  1. Students can petition their town hall to hold a town-wide clean up for their community
  2. Teacher  can create an account on Litterati and capture digital  images and data as the students capture data on their data sheets.

Grades 6-12

  1. Introductory activity
    1. Present the slideshow of litter images with your students.  Ask that they just sit back and observe each image carefully.
    2. After the slideshow, ask the students to respond to the essential questions on their own
    3. Lead a class discussion based on student answers to the essential questions.
    4. Be sure to talk to students about the dangers of litter to our sense of place (how it makes us feel about where we live), visual environment (how it looks in our environment) and the dangers to waterways and animals (can contaminate water and hurt animals).
  2. Tell students they will be doing a survey of the litter around their school and designing an educational campaign around litter.
  3. Show Litterati Founder, Jeff Kirschner, TED Talk https://youtu.be/es4w3WUcrN0
  4. Use the Litterati map (https://map.litterati.org/globalmap/) to see if there is any data captured in your school’s neighborhood.
  5. Using the data table provided, students will then pick up litter around their school. For older students, consider widening the perimeter.  Students should be provided with gloves and bags to gather litter safely.
  6. Returning to the classroom, students should analyze their data.
    1. How much litter did they find?
    2. What was the most common type of litter found?
    3. How do they think that litter made its way to their school? (Wind, water, individual)
    4. How many trash and recycling receptacles were available outside the school and where?
  7. Choosing their medium of choice, students should design a campaign educating their school and community about littering and show residents ways they can reduce litter in their community.
    1. Campaign Options: Video, slideshow, poster, flyer/brochure, Public Service Announcements, play

Extensions:

  1. Students can petition their town hall to hold a town-wide clean up for their community
  2. Students can visit their local elementary school to educate the students on littering
  3. Teacher  can create an account on Litterati and capture digital  images and data as the students capture data on their data sheets.