Classroom Garbage Experiment

TEACHER’S GUIDE

(Suitable for grades 4 and up)

Background:(Below is some information on Burns Bog that you might want to share with your students, depending on their grade level.)

What is Burns Bog?

  • Burns Bog is the largest raised peat bog on the west coast of North America. It is about 28 square kilometres in size (That is about eight times bigger thanStanleyPark!) and is located in Delta, B.C.
  • A peat bog is a wetland, which is an area where the soil is always wet or water-logged.
  • The bog is made up of two main components:
  • Peat: Peat looks like thick, dark dirt. It is actually a mixture of dead plants that have not fully decomposed or gone rotten. The plants don’t decompose when they die in the bog because all of the water prevents them from getting enough oxygen to rot. The peat in the bog is very wet and allows many different types of plants to grow in the bog. Sphagnum moss grows on top of the peat.

(Peat)

en.wikipedia.org

  • Sphagnum Moss: Sphagnum moss loves the wet soil and peat in the bog. It grows all over the bog in thick mats. The moss releases acid into the soil of the bog, making the soil and water in the bog very acidic and sour, like a jar of vinegar.

(Sphagnum Moss)

  • The bog is a very unique and irreplaceable ecosystem.

Why is the Bog Important to the Environment?

  • Because all of the soil in the bog is water-logged and acidic, all of the plants that live in the bog are very special because they are able to live in a very uniqueenvironment where most other plants could not survive (There is even a type of plant that eats insects living in the bog!).
  • The bog provides a home to many different types of birds, insects, and animals. Below is just a short list of these animals:

  • Beetles
  • Butterflies
  • Dragonflies
  • Owls
  • Canadian Geese
  • Hawks
  • Ducks
  • Swans
  • Hummingbirds
  • Black Bears
  • Raccoons
  • Chipmunks
  • Beavers
  • Deer
  • Rabbits
  • Foxes
  • Coyotes
  • And Many, Many More!

  • The sphagnum moss in the bog absorbs a lot of water. This helps to prevent floods in our roads and yards during Vancouver’s rainy season.
  • The bog traps and stores huge amounts of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere every year. Since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, the bog helps to prevent global warming!

How Does the Garbage that we Throw Away Damage the Bog?

  • Part of all of the garbage produced in the Lower Mainland of B.C. (namely in Vancouver, Delta, Richmond, White Rock, and parts of Surrey) ends up in the Vancouver Landfill.
  • The Vancouver Landfill is located in the southwest portion of Burns Bog and covers 10% - 15% of the bog. (See Figure #1).
  • In 2009, the bog received 478,427 tonnes of garbage from households in the Lower Mainland. That’s 1054750917 pounds.You know the giant,white rock on the beach in White Rock, B.C.? That’s like 1000 of those rocks going into the bog each year….except instead of rocks, it’s all garbage!

Figure #2: (Burns Bog and the Vancouver Landfill)

*The bog is the large, dark patch in the centre of the image.

The landfill is the lighter-coloured rectangle in the bottom left corner of the bog.

  • The pollution from all of this garbage can make its way into the rest of the bog, harming the plants and animals who are supposed to be living there.
  • All of that garbage produces bad smells which cause problems for many of the animals in the bog who rely on their sense of smell to find food.
  • When garbage goes into the landfill, it takes up even more valuable space in the bog. No plants or animals want to live on a garbage dump!

Purpose:

Now that we understand how important and special the bog is, and how our garbage is hurting the bog, we can use the following experiment to discover how much garbage we are producing and, more importantly, if there is any way for us to reduce the amount of garbage that we are sending into the landfill. In this way, we can do our part to help save Burns Bog and all of the plants and animals that live in it.

Objectives:

  1. To identify what items end up inyour daily garbage:What are you throwing away?
  2. To learn to take responsibility for the garbage that you generate:Do you truly need to use and throw away all of your garbage?
  3. To learn how to reduce the amount of garbage that you produce through reuse, recycling, composting, and waste-free alternatives: Can you reuse any of the things that you are throwing away? Can you use something else that doesn’t produce any garbage at all? Can you recycle or compost any of your garbage instead of throwing it into the garbage?

Materials Needed:

  • Tongs and gloves (one for each student)
  • A large tarp or plastic sheeting
  • Two large garbage bins (with lids) + extra binsfor compost, recycling, garbage overflow, etc.(optional)
  • Bathroom scale
  • Observation Sheets (included)
  • Data & Calculation Sheets (included)
  • Questionnaire (included)

Procedure:

Part 1:

  1. Set up two garbage bins (with lids) in the classroom. Label one bin “Wet Garbage” and the other bin “Dry Garbage”.

** Make sure that you tell the maintenance staff what you are doing so that they do not empty the bins before the experiment is finished.

  1. For one week, have the students put their wet garbage into the “wet garbage” bin, and their dry garbage into the “dry garbage” bin. It’s up to you whether or not you want to tell the students, beforehand, what you will be doing; but the experiment will probably be more effective and have more impact if they do not know about it. You may have recycling/composting receptacles in the classroom already. If you do, leave them as they are and don’t draw any special attention to them or discourage their use.

Part 2:

  1. At the end of the week, stand on the scale and note your weight. Have the students record this number in the space provided on their Data & Calculations Sheets (Bin Holder).
  1. Stand on the scale again, this time holding the Dry Garbage bin. Have the students record this number in the space provided on their Data & Calculations Sheets (Weight of Dry Bin and Bin Holder).
  1. Repeat Step #2with the Wet Garbage bin. Have the students record this number in the space provided on their Data & Calculations Sheets (Weight of Wet Bin and Bin Holder).

**(you may have to weigh only half of the garbage in each bin at one time, if they are too heavy. If you think this will be necessary, you should have an extra bin ready.).

  1. At this time, you may also stand on the scale with the recycling bin and then with the compost bin, if you have them. Have the students record these numbers in the spaces provided on their Data & Calculations Sheets.
  1. Empty out the contents of the bins (carefully) onto your tarp or plastic sheeting. **All the kids should be wearing gloves and have a pair of tongs. You may also want to consider having them put on their gym-strip or protective ponchos/aprons.
  1. With your class, separate the garbage from each bin into piles under the following headings:
  • Reuse(any items that could have been reused rather than thrown away or recycled)
  • Compost(any food items that could have been composted)
  • Recycling
  • Plastic
  • Paper
  • Glass
  • Cans and bottles
  • True garbage(anything that truly does belong in the garbage and doesn’t fall under any other heading)
  • Unnecessary true garbage(any true garbage that could have been avoided by using another item: example – plastic wrap or tin foil that could have been avoided by using reusable lunch containers)
  1. Have the students look at the garbage piles and fill out their Observation Sheets. Have a class discussion about the garbage: What is the class doing well? What could be improved upon to make less classroom garbage?
  1. Clean up.

Part 3:

  1. Teach a class unit on garbage/recycling/compost. Focus on the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle campaign. Have students complete their Data & Calculations sheets and Questionnaires (You may have to guide them through the calculations.).

silversretro.blogspot.com

  1. Explain to the students how our garbage affects Burns Bog. Teach them about the bog and why it is so important to us.
  1. Have the students generate their own ideas on how to reduce the amount of garbage produced in the classroom. Have them set personal and/or classroom goals to reduce waste.
  1. When the class is ready, redo the experiment, having students focus on reducing the amounts of garbage that they produce through REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE and see if the class was able to make improvements and/or reach the goals that were set.
  1. Have students write a lab report or a journal about this experience and what they learned.

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QUESTIONS

STUDENT WORKSHEET

Name: ______

Date: ______

PART #1:

Complete the Data & CalculationsSheet that you were given by following these steps:

  1. Subtract the weight of the Bin Holder from the weight of the Dry Bin and Bin Holder to find the total weight of the Dry Garbage.
  1. Subtract the weight of the Bin Holder from the weight of the Wet Bin and Bin Holder to find the total weight of the Wet Garbage.
  1. Add the total weights of the Wet Garbage and Dry Garbage together to find the Total Weight of all the garbage.
  1. Divide the Total Weight by the number of students in your class to find the amount of garbage made by each student.
  1. Subtract the weight of the Bin Holder from the weight of the compost and recycling bins to find the Total Weights of the composted and recycled items.

PART #2:

Use your Observations Sheet to help you answer the following questions on a separate piece of paper:

  1. Did you see anything in the garbage that we could use less of?
  1. Did you see anything in the garbage that we could have reused?
  1. Did you see anything in the garbage that wouldn’t have to be thrown away after it was used if we had used something else instead? (Example: Were there any plastic bags in the garbage that could have been saved by using a reusable lunch container?)
  1. Was there anything in the garbage bins that shouldn’t have been in the garbage? Where should it have been instead (recycling? compost?)?
  1. What are you and your class doing well, in terms of the garbage that you make?
  1. What can you and your class do better, to reduce the amount of garbage that you make?

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OBSERVATIONS

STUDENT WORKSHEET

Name: ______

Date: ______

Anytime that you are doing an experiment, like this one, it is very important that you write down everything that you see. This will help you to remember things for later, when you are trying to think about what you learned from doing the experiment. These things that you write down are called your observations.

Use this table to write observations on what types of things you see in the bins from your classroom. Should these things have been in the bin that they were found in? Or should they have gone into a different bin? Was there a lot of something? Or only a little bit of something?The more details that you can write down, the better!

BELONGS IN THIS BIN / DOES NOT BELONG IN THIS BIN
WET GARBAGE BIN
DRY GARBAGE BIN
RECYCLING BIN
COMPOST BIN