Teacher resources - recycling and reducing waste
Brisbane City Council has created free online lesson plans and fact sheets to help teachers with information about waste minimisation, recycling and litter prevention.
Lesson plans
These lesson plans have been designed by qualified educators with expert waste and recycling knowledge to help teachers meet curriculum objectives. The lesson plans include activities, games and curriculum links for various years on the topics of litter, nude food, organic recycling, packaging, waste minimisation and waste.
| Topic | Lesson plan | Suitable for |
|---|---|---|
| Litter | Litter detectives (Word - 123kb Investigate the who, what, where and why of littering in your school. |
Years 3, 4, 5, 6 |
| Litter | Trash my ad (Word - 109kb) Harness your writing and persuasion skills to create anti-littering advertising. |
Years 5, 6, 7, 8 |
| Litter | Wasting away (Word - 128kb) Get hands-on and see how your waste breaks down underground. |
Prep + Years 1, 2, 3, 4 |
| Nude food | Go nude (Word - 132kb) Learn how to reduce packaging and waste when you transport your food. |
Years 3, 4, 5, 6 |
| Nude food | Nude food lunch guide (Word - 135kb) Promote healthy eating and reduce waste to landfill with every lunchbox. |
Prep + Years 1, 2, 3, 4 |
| Nude food | What's in your lunchbox (Word - 124kb) Enjoy your morning tea, then catalogue and analyse what you leave behind. |
Prep + Years 1, 2, 3, 4 |
| Organic recycling | A load of rot (Word - 120kb) A hands-on guide to composting and its benefits. |
Years 3, 4, 5, 6 |
| Organic recycling | Hungry worm (Word - 113kb) Get crafty and learn about how worms are the link between growing and recycling food. |
Prep + Years 1, 2 |
| Organic recycling | Make a mini worm farm (Word - 116kb) Get hands-on with nature's recycling superstars and improve your science and geography knowledge. |
Years 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 |
| Packaging | Pack it up (Word - 114kb) Use your math and science skills to analyse everyday product packaging and its impact. |
Years 3, 4, 5, 6 |
| Packaging | Space trip (Word - 109kb) Plan your trip to a new planet, and learn how our needs versus our wants impacts the Earth. |
Prep + Years 1, 2, 3, 4 |
| Packaging | What's the cost (Word - 105kb) Learn how food miles and packaging contribute to the financial and environmental costs of food. |
Years 7, 8, 9, 10 |
| Waste minimisation | Six ways with a plastic bottle (Word - 108kb Use your imagination and design skills to see what a plastic bottle can become. |
Prep + Years 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
| Waste minimisation | Sort it out (Word - 114kb) Learn how to reduce, reuse and recycle and what happens after things go to the bin. |
Years 3, 4, 5, 6 |
| Waste minimisation | What's in the bin (Word - 165kb) Audit your school's bins and analyse the waste types and where they should go. |
Years 5, 6, 7, 8 |
| Waste minimisation | Wrap music (Word - 109kb) Turn your recycling into musical instruments. |
Prep + Years 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
| What is waste? | Build a model landfill (Word - 355kb) Design and build your own mini landfills to see what happens to all that waste. |
Years 5, 6, 7, 8 |
| What is waste? | Dinosaurs and all that rubbish (Word - 104kb) Read the book and consider how human actions impact the Earth. |
Prep + Years 1, 2, 3, 4 |
| What is waste? | Time to waste (Word - 120kb) Learn how long our waste takes to break down and why. |
Years 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 |
| What is waste? | What rubbish? (Word - 116kb) Collect your waste for one day, then see what you can do it reduce it across the school year. |
Prep + Years 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
Fact sheets
These fact sheets are designed to supplement a lesson and help your class find out more about reducing and recycling waste.
- Benefits of recycling (Word - 117kb)
- Common recycling myths (Word - 117kb)
- Compost (Word - 138kb)
- Decomposition times (Word - 126kb)
- How to make your own worm farm (Word - 119kb)
- Landfill (Word - 2Mb)
- The 3 Rs (Word - 109kb)
- Towards Zero Waste (Word - 128kb)
- Waste and recycling facts (Word - 115kb)
- Waste collection (Word - 456kb)
- Waste hierrachy (Word - 1.6Mb)
- What are we throwing away? (Word - 254kb)
- What can be recycled? (Word - 112Kb)
- What happens to your recycling? (Word - 100kb)
- What is waste? (Word - 105kb)
- Worm farming (Word - 120kb)
Recycling materials fact sheets
- Aluminium (Word - 162kb)
- Glass (Word - 167kb)
- Paper and cardboard (Word - 166kb)
- Plastic (Word - 170kb)
- Steel (Word - 107kb)
Get Grubby and other resources
Have fun teaching children from three years of age to Year 2 about recycling, worm farms, composting and reusing materials with Dirt Girl and Scrap Bay and the Get Grubby program. This program is free for early learning centres, schools, family day care and outside school hours care centres in Brisbane.
More information
For more information about these teaching resources and other waste and recycling support for schools, email our Waste Education team.