Teaching Sequence

Work through this activity in the following sequence:

Tune In:

Sharing ideas about waste and nature

Find Out:

Why is there no waste in nature?

Take Action:

Nature journal

Tune In: Sharing ideas about waste and nature

Step 1

Begin by having a discussion with your kid(s) around the following questions:

What is waste?
Where does waste come from?
What should we do with waste?

Through your discussion, lead your child(ren) to the idea that waste is the stuff that we no longer need or want. Most of the waste we create comes from things we buy, like food we haven’t eaten, clothes we no longer want or need, broken toys or appliances, and the packaging that these things come in. Most of us are pretty good at dealing with waste, and we put our waste into a bin (this could be a recycling, compost or rubbish bin).

Step 2

You can then ask the next question:

Why is it important to put our waste into the correct bin?

Through discussion, explain to your child/ren that waste can end up in nature, cause pollution, and harm the animals that live there. It’s also not very nice to look at. You might like to show these images on the attached visual explainer to guide your discussions and prompt your child/ren.

But there’s another reason to make sure our waste goes into the right bin. Many of the things we think of as waste can be turned into new products (like turning old paper into new paper, turning old plastic bottles into furniture or clothing, and turning old glass jars into new bottles or roads). If we put these products into the waste bin instead of the recycling bin, they end up going to landfills where they just sit and take years and years to decompose (you can see some waste breakdown rates on the last slide of the visual explainer). This means that we have to cut down new trees to make paper, make new plastic out of oil, or dig out more sand to make glass - using new materials to make these products has a worse impact on nature than making these products through recycling.

Watch this video from Unilever: When I Grow Up - A Recycling film and discuss why it is important to recycle our waste.

Find Out: Why is there no waste in nature?

Step 1

Now take a piece of paper, and in the middle, write the following statement:

There’s no waste in nature.

Work with your child/ren to brainstorm what you think about this statement, and record your ideas on the paper. You could record your ideas using keywords, sentences, or drawings and encourage your child(ren) to add their ideas to the paper.

You could use the following prompts to guide your brainstorming:

What does ‘there’s no waste in nature’ mean?
Why do you think there is no waste in nature?
Why do we have waste?
How might animals and plants use things in nature again and again?
What happens to things in nature when they aren’t needed anymore? (like when leaves fall off trees).

Step 2

Explain that nature doesn’t make waste (any waste created by nature - like fallen leaves or dead animals - is broken down by animals and turned into soil that becomes part of nature)

You might like to head outside to your backyard, street or even the local park to see this principle in action with your kid/s. Conduct a scavenger hunt in whatever area you choose to see if your child/children can find any of the items on this Bingo sheet. Kid/s could cross them off or colour them in as they find the items in nature. As you find each item discuss why this might not be considered to be ‘waste’. You can find the purpose of all of the listed items below to help you in your discussions.

Cross off each square or get your kid/s to colour in the items on the sheet. If you are conducting the scavenger hunt with more than one child, you could make the bingo game a competition, seeing who can spot enough items to check off a row first!

Item	Purpose
Leaves	• Provide food and shelter for insects • As they break down, they add nutrients into the soil that help plants grow strong and healthy
Sticks	• Used by birds for building nests • Provide a place to live for insects • As they break down they add nutrients into the soil that help plants grow strong and healthy
Flowers	• Bees and butterflies use the nectar to pollinate • Produce seeds so new flowers can grow
Pinecones	• Protect the seeds of pine trees • Provide food for wildlife as they break down, they add nutrients into the soil that help plants grow strong and healthy
moss	• Like a sponge that holds water and helps the soil stay wet, which is good for plants growing nearby • The moss provides habitat for insects and small animals • Helps to clean the air and remove any unwanted substances
Seeds	• Spread out and grow into new plants • Provide food for animals like birds
Ants and worms	• Eat old plants, leaves and other once-living things, which give back nutrients to the soil, to make it better for growing healthy, strong plants. • When they wriggle around in the soil, they break it up a little so that air, food, and water can get in. • Provide food for small birds and animals
Rocks	• Over time, they break down into small pieces (helped out by the weather). When this happens, it provides minerals to the soil to make it better for growing healthy, strong plants
Animal poo	• Contains nutrients that go back into the soil and help plants grow strong and healthy. • Some animals eat seeds as a part of their diet. When they poo, they spread out the seeds into different places to grow new plants
Birds nest	• Birds often reuse lots of things from around their habitat like twigs, leaves and feathers, to make their nest

Literacy Extension

Introduce some of these words using the simplified meanings provided!

Nutrients - important substances that help things grow big and strong, fruit and vegies contain nutrients that give us energy and help us stay healthy. Plants and animals need these nutrients too.
Decompose - break down into tiny pieces that can be used again, like breaking down a Lego house to use the bricks to make something new
Habitat - a place where plants and animals live that keeps them safe and meets all of their needs, like your house.
Pollination - an important process that lots of insects like bees help with that helps flowers and plants produce fruit

Take Action: Nature journal

Step 1

Explain to your child/ren that they are now going to create a ‘There’s no waste in nature’ journal. Together you will take regular walks around your neighbourhood (once a week or so) to observe and record the parts of nature that interest you, and to record the places where waste seems to collect. You could:

revisit the same spot to see how it changes over time, and to see if there is a pattern to the types of waste that collect there (e.g. you could just focus on your street, or your local beach or park)
go to different places to see how they are similar and different in terms of nature and the types of waste that are collected there (e.g. how does nature differ between the beach and the park? How does waste differ?)
any other system or location of your choosing

You could include any of the following in your ‘There’s no waste in nature’ journal:

a map of where you visit
photos
sketches or doodles
a written record
a list of the different types of waste that you see
a list of the different features of nature (e.g. types of birds or different colours of flowers)
anything else you like!

You could also make a checklist of things you need when heading out to observe nature and waste. This could include a hat, sunscreen, water, a bag for collecting waste, and small tongs/metal sticks/gloves for picking up waste.

Step 2

Once you have compiled some entries in your journal, you could share your findings with your friends, families, or neighbours. How do your observations compare with their observations? What are they interested in? What are they surprised about?

Options to Take it Further

1. You could work together to organise a Clean Up event for a place where you notice a lot of waste collecting.

Register for Clean Up Australia Day - Clean Up Australia - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZIDYYZ5dyU)

2. If your child/ren is interested in learning more about waste and how other children are helping to tackle waste and clean up nature, you could share the following clips:

Rookie Report: Molly's Straw No More Campaign - Behind the News
- Meet Molly. She's a 10-year-old determined to do something about plastic pollution and started a campaign to rid the country - if not the planet - of plastic straws.

Clean Up - There's No Waste In Nature (home learning)

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