Research

Weiland, Mary, Ann Boekhoff, and Tami Staloch-Schultz . 2012. “Methods & Strategies: From Landfills to Robots.” Science and Children 49, no. 7 (March 2012): 72–76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43747339. 

Summary: In this article, the author outlines a lesson completed in an elementary classroom meant to increase awareness of how much waste we produce and encourage students and families to reduce the amount of waste they produce by recycling and reusing items. Families were given a questionnaire to determine how much recycling and reusing they already do at home. Students were asked to bring used items from home to make a class "landfill." This landfill was used to show students how much waste we produce and provide students with items they could use to create something new and purposeful. Students observed the benefits and cons of different packaging of everyday items as they sorted the items in their landfill into three categories: recyclable, reusable, and garbage. Students then practiced using the engineering process to build something new that could meet human needs using the items. Families were given a post-project questionnaire with the same questions as the pre-project questionnaire, which showed increased willingness to reduce, reuse, recycle, and decrease the amount of waste produced at home and in the classroom.