Teaching Sequence

Background information

This resource has been designed to support you in starting a student action team around waste – a Waste Warrior Team (WWT) – to tackle waste issues at your school and in your community. War On Waste highlights the importance of tackling waste, and in Series 2, there is a particular emphasis on plastic waste. In addition, the issues addressed throughout this unit demonstrate the problems we’re still facing with waste and the importance for us all to get involved.

Getting students involved in managing the waste generated at their school and in their community is a great way of getting kids started on their journey to sustainability. Creating a WWT is a way to ensure that actions for addressing waste at your school and in your community are monitored, improved upon and continued over the years, extending the real-world impact of student work. By documenting the work that you do you can pass on your work to new team members who can evaluate past successes, identify opportunities for improvement, and build a more sustainable school community in the long term. In light of this, it is recommended that you create a WWT folder and workbook where you can record notes and ideas generated by your team. This can be accessed each time the team comes together and can be passed onto WWT teams in subsequent years.

Starting a WWT can be very rewarding for both students and teachers. The aim of the group, which is comprised of students and teachers, is to work together towards the sustainability of their school environment. One of the best parts of creating a WWT is that you will get to know students on a personal level and watch them grow into passionate environmental change agents. It gives students the opportunity to be part of a team and enhance their leadership skills. It also empowers them to contribute to something bigger than themselves.

Being part of a WWT is also a great opportunity to use, develop and demonstrate the need for 21st Century Skills (those skills that can be used across multiple scenarios at all stages of life). In the Australian Curriculum, these skills are incorporated in the General Capabilities. Through this lesson we have added information to show where team members have the opportunity to develop the General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum.

Steps To Starting A Waste Warrior Team

Step 1.

Identifying your WWT vision (General Capabilities: Creative Thinking and Communicating)

1. It is important for the team to work out their shared vision. You should work collaboratively to create your vision statement.

Working on your vision statements is also a great opportunity for everyone involved to begin to get to know each other and share their most important issues around waste.

2. Divide your team into small groups and give each group a large piece of butcher's paper. As a group they need to create a picture of their school or community once it is completely free of waste problems. They then need to think up a short sentence or statement that sums up their vision for a waste-wise school. Each group can then share their picture with the team and rank the top three most important features of their picture.

3. Once each group has had the chance to share their ideas, it’s time to create one sentence that describes the vision of the team. The sentence should be based on the most important issues raised by each team member. It may take some time to refine your sentence, and it may be that you find it easier to have several sentences. Don’t worry about this too much; the main things are that everyone knows what the vision for the team is and is able to communicate it easily.

4. Once you have decided on your vision statement, record it in your WWT workbook.

Step 2.

Holding your first Waste Warriors Team meeting and recruiting team members (General Capabilities: Communication, Team Work, and Social Skills)

1. Try to pick a time for your meeting when you think you’ll be able to have as many people involved as possible. After school might not be so good – lots of people play sport or have buses to catch and so can’t stick around school once it’s finished for the day. You could have it during lunchtime, but just remember that maybe some teachers or parents might not be able to make it. Another option would be to talk to your staff about having some time in assembly or another in-school time to talk about your Waste Warrior Team (WWT).

2. The first task is to recruit some people to be in your team. You could just invite the people who have said they are interested in being in a WWT, but why don’t you try and get as many people as possible to come along to the first team meeting? Create flyers or posters to advertise what you’re doing and put them around the school in places where you think they will be easily seen.

Alternatively, you may decide that participation in your WWT is a requirement for students, at least for the first few actions. Or you may seek volunteers from across multiple classes and year levels.

When recruiting people, the number one rule is to 'make it cool'. Why would anyone want to join your team if all they have to do is work and sit around in boring meetings? You need to focus on the benefits for them and make it sound fun and exciting.

Don't worry if your WWT initially starts out small; it will grow quickly, and together you’ll be able to make a real difference at your school and to our environment.

You could engage your first few WWT members as recruiters to help you recruit other members. This could be done by creating communication materials for the school newsletter or a presentation for the assembly. You can use the 5Ws and a H to help define the role of the WWT:

Who you are (e.g. “We are members of the new WWT”)
What you want to do (e.g. “We want to reduce waste at school and in our community”)
Why you want to do it (e.g. “Did you know that plastic waste is still a huge problem for our environment? Even though everyone is getting better at reducing waste, there’s still more to be done, and we want to go big!”)
Where it will happen (e.g. “The WWT will be addressing waste in our school and community and will meet every Wednesday in the library”)
When it’s going to happen (e.g. “Our first action is to have a park blitz next Wednesday lunch time, meet us there!”)
How you want to do it (e.g. “We want to get as many kids together as possible to take on actions to make real change in our community”)

Additional tips for forming your team:

You could also approach other teachers or parents to join you. You will need lots of support and the more adults in your team the better. This is especially important to ensure you don't take on too much and burn yourself out.
Getting your principal on board can make your life much easier. They are essentially the person who will say yes or no to the projects you and the team want to implement. School principals are incredibly busy people and are often juggling many different priorities. Finding out the key priorities of your principal can help you when you're seeking permission for big projects such as a whole school recycling program, solar panels and community gardens. Think about what angle to take so that you can skew your communication to what will get the project over the line. Will the principal be interested in the financial, social, community or environmental benefits? The key selling points for your principal might be that the project will increase student outcomes and school engagement. Or that you could save the school thousands of dollars. Find out what language they speak and use that knowledge to your advantage!
What about also trying to involve your groundsperson, cleaner or caretaker? They will know what things your school is already doing about waste. They might also have a good understanding of how things work at your school, and how easy your ideas for your school might be to do.

Step 3.

Assigning roles and establishing guidelines (General Capabilities: Team Work and Social Skills)

1. Once you have your team you can begin working with your team to assign roles and responsibilities within the team. A good way to do this is to support your team in exploring their own personal skills and qualities that they can contribute to the team.

Take a moment to clarify the difference between skills and qualities:

Skills - a skill is something we do well that we learned to do. This could include things like coding, drawing or researching.
Personal quality - a personal quality is something we are born with. This could include something like patience, curiosity or positive thinking.

It is important to emphasise that any of us can adopt a growth mindset when it comes to our skills and qualities. This means that although some of us might be more naturally attuned to certain skills or qualities over others, all of us have the ability to expand and build upon our lesser developed skills and qualities.

There are two options for this activity:

Option A: Where your team members are familiar with one another (i.e. in the same class) you could invite each student to talk to two other people, taking it in turns to share what they think are the other person's skills and qualities. They could ask each other: Can you please share one of the skills or qualities you have noticed about me? Each student needs to record what the other members of your team have said about their skills and qualities in their workbooks.
Option B: Your team could work independently to record the skills and qualities that they recognise in themselves or that they would like to develop. Each team member could record two skills and qualities that they know about themselves (e.g. patient and good at writing) and one skill or quality they would like to develop (e.g. drawing).

The aim here is for your team to understand that they have something to offer to the team, and for any teachers involved to support your team members to use or extend these skills and qualities throughout any teamwork activities relating to the WWT.

2. In order for the team to run well, you should create a team structure. You may want to have a president and vice president, or captains and monitors. Select a structure that works best for your team and school. You should think about what roles the members of your WWT can take. You don’t necessarily need to have a leader, but it might be a good idea to have people take on tasks and jobs that help manage the team. These can be based on the skills and qualities identified earlier, either those that students already have or those they would like experience in. Some examples of speciality positions are: Communications Manager, Treasurer, Designers, IT Specialist, Public Speakers, and Minutes Taker. Remember… draw on the strengths of the students and give them the opportunity to succeed by using these strengths.

Who is in charge? The kids! The group needs to be all about the kids and fostering their student leadership skills. They are responsible for the running of the meetings and ultimately the success of any actions the team takes. The WWT works best if the teachers take a 'guide beside' approach and give the students the opportunity to flex their leadership muscles. That way, the group takes ownership and they feel truly empowered to make positive changes. Once you have explained to the students that they are ultimately responsible for the running of the team and the success of the projects, you need to reinforce the importance of their roles and the commitment required. If you decide to have a weekly team meeting then it is expected that each student attends and follows through on jobs to which they have committed.

3. Now explain to your team that even though everyone has something important or valuable to bring to a team, working as a team comes with challenges. It can be difficult agreeing on ideas, and making sure that everyone has a role to play and gets the chance to contribute. But these challenges can be planned for and can be overcome if we create a set of teamwork guidelines; in this way, everyone in the team knows what is expected of them and knows what they should be doing to ensure the success of the team's project.

Working collaboratively, invite your team to look at the following potential challenges that teams may encounter. Your team need to work together to suggest actions to address each challenge (suggested answers included):

Challenge	Suggested actions to address challenge
Everyone talking at once	Take it in turns to talk Make sure you listen to what other people are saying instead of just trying to say what you want to say
Some people talking more than others	Take it in turns to talk Make sure you listen to what other people are saying instead of just trying to say what you want to say Always check that everyone has had the chance to contribute to a shared conversation
Not being able to agree on ideas or what to do next	All major decisions need to be agreed upon as a group Make a list of major decisions and work together to decide on them together Build in time to check on how everyone is going
People not being sure of what they should be doing	Build in time to check on how everyone is going Allocate roles at the start of a WWT action, such as manager, scribe or thinker (you could use this suggested list of Group Roles.) The manager/leader can remind people what they should be doing
People not having the chance to do what they are good at	At the start of each WWT action allow time for each team member to share what they would like to be able to do, what their strengths are – but remember that sometimes to get an action done we just need people to chip in even if it isn’t their strength or something they are particularly interested in
Some people feeling left out	Make sure everyone has the chance to contribute by allocating roles and allowing people to speak All major decisions need to be agreed upon as a group
Not being able to remember what was agreed upon	Make sure you keep notes of what decisions were made and who agreed to do what tasks The manager/leader can remind people what they should be doing
Trying to complete a task/action as a team that isn’t realistic	Before beginning a WWT action, make sure it is realistic and that you can complete it in the allocated time frame and with the resources you have available

4. Work together to make a ‘Teamwork Guidelines’ document or poster that all team members can refer to when working together or that can be shared with new team members. In addition, keep a copy in your WWT workbook.

Step 4.

Identifying the problem (General Capabilities: Problem Finding and Critical Thinking)

1. With your group established it’s time to think about a waste problem you would like to address as your first action. It may be that your team has already identified a problem or you may need to work together to think about a problem.

You could do this by thinking about some of the issues raised in this unit, or issues that your team identify as important. You could then think about how these issues might relate to your school. Some examples could include:

Issue	How this issue might relate to your school
Single-use plastics	Plastic straws and sauce packets at the canteen
Plastic waste in our oceans	Lunch box litter in the schoolyard
Microplastics	Uniforms made from synthetic materials which when washed might cause microplastics to wash into waterways

2. Once you have chosen a problem you can start working with your WWT to find out the details of this problem. This will help you justify any actions you want to take and will help you explain to other people why you want to do it. To support your team in doing this you could ask them to address the following questions:

What is the problem we want to address? E.g. plastic sauce packets.
Where does this problem occur? E.g. the canteen.
Who is involved with this problem? E.g. people buying food, people supplying food.
What are the causes and consequences of the problem? E.g. plastic sauce packets are used for lunch orders but are only used once then thrown away. They can’t be recycled so they just end up going to landfill or polluting our environment.
Are there any wider or long-term consequences? E.g. If single-use plastics get littered they can end up in our oceans where marine animals mistake them for food and eat them. This can have serious impacts on marine animals.
How might this relate to our community (ignore if you want to only focus on your school)? E.g. Other shops might also be using sauce packets; we could create an action that also targets them.

You could use one piece of butchers paper for each question and invite your team to share any thoughts they have about each question. Once complete, you could work together to refine your answers, considering the suggestions your team have made. You should then record your answers in your WWT workbook.

Step 5.

Developing actions to address the problem (General Capabilities: Problem Solving and Creative Thinking)

1. Your WWT can now start developing ideas for an action to address the waste problem they identified. You could do this by conducting a brainstorm. One way you could do this would be as follows:

Break the team into groups and give each group a piece of butcher’s paper and some marker pens. The butchers paper can be used as a collaborative brainstorming sheet to record ideas.
Invite your team to get up out of their seats and stand around their paper to record their ideas – this will encourage more creative thought.
Ideas can be written down or your team can do drawings to communicate their ideas.
Let your team know that they can use what other people in their group are adding to the paper as inspiration for their own ideas.
You could give your team a set amount of time to answer each question (e.g. two minutes), giving time warnings during the countdown (e.g. “30 seconds left!").

2. Once complete, allow groups several minutes to discuss and clarify their ideas. They should then attempt to summarise their brainstorm.

When complete, ask each group to assess their idea using the following question:

Will this idea help to address the waste problem we identified?

If the answer is ‘no’, allow your team time to refine their ideas.

3. Now it’s time to pick an idea to pursue. You – the teacher – could choose the idea you think will be most feasible given the time and resources you have available to you, or you could ask your team to vote for an idea.

Step 6.

Testing your ideas (General Capabilities: Critical Thinking)

1. An important part of ensuring your idea for action is successful is to test your idea. Depending on what your idea for action is this could mean things like:

Making a prototype
Checking that you can use equipment
Checking your idea will fit in the space you have available for it
Making sure you have enough people to make your idea a reality
Checking that you have access to things you might need.

2. Another way of testing an idea is to use a SWOT Analysis Template.

3. Finally, you could also test your idea against your vision statement – does your idea meet the goals of your vision?

4. Once you have tested your idea work collaboratively to refine your idea to improve it.

Step 7.

Planning the details of an action (General Capabilities: Creative Thinking and Entrepreneurship)

When it’s time to start planning the details of an action, call a team meeting and work collaboratively through the points on the Action Planning Tool.

Step 8.

How to talk to people about waste (General Capabilities: Empathy, Community Engagement, Communicating and Social Skills)

1. Working with a Waste Warrior Team means you have a group of people who are all passionate about waste and our environment. And although you can't fix the waste crisis all by yourselves, your team does have the power to affect the people around you, including other students at your school, staff, and friends and families.

We hear and talk a lot about being persuasive, and while that is important for printed material or a video or a podcast, trying to persuade someone to change their minds or actions through conversation is really hard. When you simply tell someone that they're wrong and there's a better way to do things they will get defensive and they won't hear anything you say. And if they're not listening to you there's no point in you telling them everything you know, even if you're practising all the persuasive techniques in the book.

But, people love being listened to. And you can do that in a conversation. But what does an actual conversation look like? Here are some steps for having conversations with people about big issues such as the waste crisis. Consider sharing these with your team:

Ask for permission - Start by thinking of everything you want to share about waste, and then try really hard not to say anything about it. Instead, ask the person you'd like to talk to if you can talk to them about something. You can literally ask "Hey, do you have a few minutes to talk about something?" If they say no, then try again later.
Start with a question - If the person you are talking to agrees to have a chat, start with a question and make it about the other person – you want them to be sharing their experiences and not to feel like they are being tested on their knowledge. For example, "What are your thoughts on waste?" or "Are you worried about the waste crisis?". Try not to ask a question that can be answered with a yes or a no, but if you do, then ask them to explain their position.
Listen to the answer - When they are sharing their thoughts, your job is to listen. Really listen. And don't interrupt. And don't be surprised if you find it really hard – it is hard! Especially if the other person is saying something you disagree with or you think is incorrect. But you need to listen. If the other person doesn't say much it doesn't mean it's your turn to talk. It's only your turn to talk when the other person has shared something about themselves and you've learned something about them. So invite them to say more, by asking questions like "Can you tell me more about that?". If they're older, you could ask them "What did we do with waste when you were a kid?".
Reflect back what they said - As the person you are talking to shares things about themselves, reflect back what you are hearing them say. For example, you could say "What I'm hearing is that...", or "That's interesting, I never knew/thought of that." This lets them know that you are listening and that you care about what they're saying. It also helps them feel that they can trust you and that they feel comfortable enough to keep chatting with you.
Ask permission to share your story - You could then ask "Do you mind if I share what I've been thinking?" The aim here isn't to convince them of your position but instead to share something about yourself in relation to the topic of waste. For example, "I'm really worried about waste because I found out that seabirds eat plastic and it can really hurt them".
Ask what they think - Once you've shared your story, ask the person you're talking to what they think about what you've said and again, listen to their answer.
This is how to have a conversation!

2. It's also interesting to watch Craig – the host of War On Waste – talking to people throughout the series. View on iTunes or Clickview:

Episode 2, The Battle Continues - 11:27 to 16:30

Once complete, ask your team to share their observations. Through this process suggest to the team that in addition to listening to people, Craig shares his own experiences in a way that makes his audience feel like they're on the waste journey together, rather than pointing out what people are doing wrong. By sharing experiences in this way he helps his audience to remain open to what he is talking about.

For example:

At 12:38 to 13:12 Craig and the Khoureys share how tech gets broken.
At 16:01 to 16:28 Natalie says: "We're a very spoilt generation which upgrade way too easily." Then Craig says: "You're not alone. So many of us do this. The technology nowadays moves faster, so we end up chucking out stuff that works."

Engaging people in a way where the causes of the problem being discussed are shared – and not the fault of a certain few – is a great way of effectively getting people to support your action.

3. You could ask your team to practise their conversation skills with each other. Each member of the team could pick a topic – not waste – that they are interested in and could engage another member of the team in a conversation around that topic, remembering some of the points raised above.

Share the following image as a reminder:

Team members could then reflect on:

How it felt to really listen to what someone was saying
How it felt to be listened to

Step 9.

Implementing an action (General Capabilities: Leadership and Initiative)

1. After you have completed the planning process, allow your team time to deliver their action. You could use the Action Checklist so that they can keep track of what they need to do to deliver their action. Support your team through this process by providing them with information about the timeline for the action and any relevant logistics relating to your school, how to book resources such as cameras and rooms, or who to speak to for permission for their intended action.

Consider the following tips when supporting your team through this process:

2. At appropriate intervals, conference with your team to discuss their progress. Use these questions to guide the conference:

What have you done so far, and how/why?
What needs to be done next, and how/why?
When will it be finished, and how?
What help or resources do you need to get it done, and how might we get these?

Step 10.

Celebration (General Capabilities: Communication, Community Engagement)

1. An important part of real-world learning, such as in this project, is the opportunity for your team to present their work in a public arena. This could mean:

Hosting an exhibition where the process and results of your team's work is displayed; or
Preparing an article for the newsletter about the team's actions; or
Producing and screening a two-minute film that documents the team's work.

In this presentation ensure that students communicate:

Why did they choose this action? (E.g. what problem were they hoping to address and the reasons they chose this problem)
How did they complete this action? (E.g. what steps were required and the roles people played)
What was the impact of their action?
How could they extend or continue this action?

This could be used as a callout for more members to the WWT!

Through this process ensure that you share the skills, attitudes and capabilities you observed in your team, and explain the importance and transferability of these qualities with the ability to succeed in life.

War On Waste - Start A Waste Warrior Team

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