Trash: A Project Approach

This week, the entire school community is experimenting with Project Based Learning. It's not a new approach in the Gan - but we are really stepping back from many of our other subjects this week to focus on a driving question: What's the problem with trash, and what can we do about it?

The unit actually began way back during February vacation, when many of you were kind of enough to complete a trash log, recording what your family discarded, recycled, composted (or flushed) over the course on one day. This process helped begin to raise children's awareness of what we get rid of, and how we get rid of it. We learned that Gan families seem to create below the national average of trash, which is 4.5 pounds per person (thanks, in part, to backyard chickens.)

When children returned from vacation, we asked them to respond, in drawing and writing, to the following question: What do you think happens to your trash after you throw it away? Their responses are on display in the classroom - come take a look in person if you can. At the end of our unit, we'll use our "first impressions" to help assess what we've learned.

On Wednesday, we had the opportunity to visit the Hartford Trash Museum, located on the site of the city's single-stream recycling facility. We saw truck after truck unload huge piles of recycling, and watched machines and workers sort the recycling into glass, metal, plastic and paper (as well as pull out non-recyclables.) In addition to the real work going on at this facility, there are all sorts of kid-friendly exhibits designed to teach children about garbage, wise management of resources, recycling and creative reuse. The hours are limited, so we didn't have as much time as we would have liked to explore - you might consider returning with your child for a second visit.

On Thursday, at the end of the day, children collected the trash from all of the classrooms and offices at LGA. On Friday, we dumped all the trash out on a tarp (in the middle of our room) and examined just what gets thrown away each day at LGA. What do you see? Anything that.....shouldn't really be in the trash? We certainly did!

After reviewing the contents of our trash bags last week, it became evident that an important focus for this week will be figuring out why trash that could be recycled or composted ends up in our trashbags. We have read several books and watched a video about landfills; children are beginning to really understand how landfills work, just how enormous they are, and why sending so much trash to landfills is a problem. We'll try to determine how to reduce the amount of trash we send to landfills, not only through increased composting and recycling, but by encouraging different choices that avoid creating waste to begin with.

Today, we reviewed what can and can't be recycled, with a particular emphasis on which plastics the local MRF will accept, as this can be fairly tricky. Children divided a big pile of clean containers and plastic materials into three piles - yes it can be recycled; no, it cannot be recycled; and not sure. Much debate ensued between children over certain items; as Andrea and I watched their decision making and listened to their conversations, we got some insight into concepts we needed to reinforce. "That should be in the yes pile, because you can use it again." "That doesn't go here, because it's got a label on it." "Cans can't be recycled."

Eventually, using some giant posters on loan to us by the city of Northampton, we came to an agreement about all but a few items. At the end of the activity, we called the Department of Public Works on speakerphone to ask about blue plastic containers that mushrooms come in (yes), some hard plastic packaging (no) and the lid of a vitamin container (yes, but please attach the lid to the bottle, if possible.) The call was fun for us, and seemed pretty entertaining for the person on the other end of the line as well.

This afternoon, we looked over all our photos of the trash we collected Thursday, and children identified some of the items that could have been recycled or composted. We then took all the compost (which I had pulled Friday after school) and took it to Abudnance Farm, where we placed it in the compost bin.

In other news, the imagination station spontaneously morphed into a recycling center, with all kinds of interesting transactions taking place.

Tomorrow, we will be joining Susan Waite, Northampton's recycling coordinator, for a trip to the Glendale Road Transfer station. We'll learn a little bit more about the town landfill, how it works, and why it was closed. We'll have a special opportunity to visit the Northampton Recenter Swap Shop, where Northampton residents can both leave and take items in good condition for absolutely free. While this center is closed off season, Susan is excited to give children a tour and invite them to take an item home. We'll do our best to help them make sensible choices.

Please remember to leave labeled car seats tomorrow-and stay tuned for more news.