Teaching Sequence

Preparation

Students will need to complete the preparation work on the Student Worksheet. They will need to have recorded all the food that they eat over the course of one day and how it was packaged. They will need to observe what sort of packaging was used (paper or plastic) and whether this was recyclable or not.

Part A: Understanding Packaging

Step 1

Once back in the classroom hold a discussion around the results gathered in their research. Use some or all of the following questions to help with the class discussion:

How much of your food had packaging?
What types of packaging did you find?
Can you recycle the packaging that your food came in?
Of all your food that was packaged, which one did you think was the most environmentally friendly? Why?
Do you think that the packaging was always necessary? Why or why not?
Did the packaging make the food more attractive to you? Why or why not?
What are the positive and negative characteristics of packaging and why?
What environmental impacts do you think packaging might have?
Where can you buy food with less packaging or no packaging at all?
Which is fresher – packaged food or food without packaging? Why?
Which has less impact upon the environment - food with or without packaging? Why?
Which sorts of food do you think needs packaging and which doesn’t?
What can we all do to reduce the environmental impact of packaging?

Part B: Design a Rubbish Free Lunch

Step 1

Explain to students that rubbish free lunches tend to result in reducing litter while encouraging students to eat better. Often, highly processed foods are packaged while unprocessed snacks, such as fruit and vegetables, are not.

Students will plan a rubbish free lunch students to promote sustainability awareness in the wider community.

Step 2

Break your class into groups. Using the information that they have recorded about the food that they eat and its packaging, ask them to work in groups to prepare a new menu for the whole day using ingredients that have little or no packaging, or packaging that is recyclable or compostable. Ask them to present their new menus to the class.

There are many different ways to hold a rubbish free lunch; the fun is in allowing your students to plan and complete the project and sitting back to observe what they can achieve. Break them into small groups and equip them with markers and butchers paper. They should brainstorm ideas and start to plan details using the table below.

Things for students to consider:

Who will participate?	Ideally, you will have the whole school participate.
When will it be held and for how long?	Students will need to consider if it will be held over a day or a week.
Getting approval	You may need to seek the Principals approval.
Monitoring the lunch	How will you monitor and measure the impact of the lunch?
Will the canteen be open?	The canteen may be able to alter it's menu to include rubbish free items.
Compost buckets/system	If your school doesn't have a composting system this is a good opportunity to put one in. At the very least you will need to organise compost buckets to compensate for the extra 'nude' food.
Advertising the event	Students can use the menu they designed in the last activity to turn into a poster. On the poster ensure they add the dates of the event.

Examples of items in a waste-free lunch

Food in a reusable container
Drinks in reusable bottles
Raw or 'nude' vegetables and fruit
Yoghurt in a small reusable container, filled from a bulk container

Useful resources

Other useful information

Provide your students with a letter for their parents/guardians, which explains the rubbish free lunch and suggested menu items. It is a good idea to provide a contact person in case they have any questions.
You can also complete a whole school rubbish audit before and after the event to measure the results. You could use the following lessons to guide your audit:
- War On Waste – What Waste Do We Create At School? Litter Audit – Years 4 to 6
- War On Waste – What Waste Do We Create At School? Waste Audit – Years 4 to 6
- War On Waste – Auditing the Waste at Our School – Years 7 to 10
- War On Waste – Auditing the Litter at Our School – Years 7 to 10

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to respond to the following (also available on the Student Worksheet):

I used to think...
But now I think...

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Clean Up Australia - Rubbish Free Lunch

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