Garbage Landfills Recycling Plastic Unit Print & Digital

Explore in this unit the increasingly urgent problem of our world’s biggest growing problem: garbage, especially plastic.

Everything from single-use disposable plastic to landfills and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the myth of recycling and zero-waste living is covered!

Grab students' attention with shocking numbers, make it real with eye-opening documentaries and videos, guide them to dig deeper into current events, and inspire them to make zero-waste swaps, and encourage others to do the same.

This unit comes in both print PDF and editable digital Google files.

It's routinely revised to keep up-to-date with the most current statistics, data displays, and outside sources. You'll have free access to all future updates. It was last updated in 2023.

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Greatness is believing in the power of one person’s choices to impact the world.

Few teenagers know the world beyond their own surroundings and many have no idea how their lifestyle, their consumption levels, their “normal” behavior are not the reality for much of the world, especially when it comes to our natural resources.

Guide your students through a variety of sources, from documentaries and graphs to news articles and their own research, as they grapple with the urgent question: “How can I reduce the amount of garbage I create?”

Set each of them up for success with this high interest, multi-faceted unit with highly scaffolded graphic organizers, student directions, and supplemental resources included at each step of the way.

And empower your students to become eco-aware smaller-footprint citizens in this 3-week unit!

Included in this complete inquiry-driven unit:

Teacher Materials

• Teacher Unit Overview with general notes, links, standards, and a pacing guide with standards (3 pages)
• Daily Lesson Plans with step-by-step directions, planning tips, and lesson takeaway notes (16 pages total)
• Detailed Answer Keys for each activity
• Image Files of each of the included data displays
• Unit Review and Skills handouts with self-checking questions and "I Can..." statements
• Skill Handouts that include Annotating a Text, Analyzing News Media Sources, Analyzing a Political Cartoon
• Digital Quick Links File all the links to editable Google file of all student materials

Student Materials

• Unit Notes: deepen learning on the concept garbage throughout the unit
• Incoming Brainstorm: open unit with a discussion of the unit's central concept, garbage
• Garbage Pop Quiz: kick off the unit with some eye-opening statistics and facts
• Human Footprint: using eye-popping displays of lifetime supplies of everyday items in this documentary, students realize how much they really consume
• What Even is Plastic? Video Notes: gain a solid overview of world's favorite material, plastic, including its history, versatility, and enormous cost of being largely non-recyclable with guided notes for short informational videos
• Where is "Away?": investigate where garbage really goes by exploring images of various landfills around the world
• Plastic Use & Pollution: analyze a wide variety of maps and graphs for how plastic has exponentially exploded in use and how much is ending up in oceans and landfills
• Just Eat It: follow a couple as they eat discarded food for 6 months and talk to experts on the 40% of food that gets thrown away in this engaging documentary
• Case Study: Zero-Waste Life: dig into the daily lifestyles of people when have given up on creating garbage
• Money Can't Buy Happiness: investigate what experts are uncovering about the relationship between stuff and being happy
• Be the Solution Project: research zero-waste alternatives to everyday products and share learning in engaging infographics and a bulletin board
• Political Cartoon & News Article Analysis: incorporate timely events with these templates, comes with ideas for how to incorporate them throughout the unit
• Socratic Seminar Discussion: culminate learning with a deep conversation about what all this means for the future of the planet and for your students
• Assessment: confidently assess with short-answer and extending written response questions

Note on Resources Used

The video clips, news articles, and data displays used in this unit can be accessed free online at the time of this latest update.

Two full-length documentaries are used in this unit. Just Eat It is available for free streaming at the time of this latest update, though you may wish to purchase it. National Geographic's Human Footprint is available inexpensively for DVD purchase or can be simply left out of this unit.

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Looking for more units on sustainability?

These units can be easily integrated into your Current Events, Human Geography, or Environmental Science course

• Water Supply & Pollution: a 3-week unit exploring our finite freshwater supply and the human rights, pollution, and conservation issues that need urgent solutions
• Fossil Fuels & Alternatives: a 3-week unit exploring our addiction to oil, the harsh impact it is having on our air pollution and greenhouse gas levels, and the urgent need to switch to clean renewable energy sources

Interested in making this into a full-course?

Global Issues to Empower, a semester-long current events, human geography, and environmental science all-in-one course

• World Population, Demographics, & Poverty PBL Unit: explore worldwide population numbers, extreme poverty, and demographics
• Growth, Globalization, & Natural Resources PBL Unit: explore the growth and shrinking of our global population, connectivity, and resources
• Sustainability PBL Unit: explores the ever-increasing water, fossil fuel, and garbage footprints
• Global Priorities Research Project: a 2-option, 2-3 week capstone research project where students complete either a one-pager or research essay on the global issue they find most pressing

This listing is for one license for regular, non-commercial classroom use by a single teacher only. Commercial use like online teaching (ex. Outschool) or sharing with other teachers (ex. shared drive, in a Facebook group, in a professional development training) is strictly prohibited.

By purchasing a license to this resource, you have access to all future updates at no cost, available under “My Purchases." Multiple and transferable licenses are available for purchase. PDF files are uneditable, other files have editing abilities, unless otherwise stated. All files are protected under federal copyright laws.

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