Plan
- Do you want to do this adventure inside, outside or at camp?
- What types of trash can you bring to the meeting?
- For how many days do you plan to collect your trash?
- At camp, collect all of your trash.
- How can you calculate how much space your trash takes up?
- What will you build with your trash? What tools will you need?
Do
Activity #1: How much? How long?
- How much trash did you produce? How much does it weigh? How much space does it take up?
- Try to make the pile of trash smaller so that it takes up less space. Does it weigh less than it did before?
- Calculate how much trash you will make in a month. What about a year? And in 70 years?
- Do you know how much of our waste we recycle in Canada? What happens to the recycled trash? Where does the rest of our trash go?
- Use the “How long it takes to decompose” poster to understand how long your trash will remain in the environment.
Activity #2: Use the trash to make something new
- In groups of two or three, use your trash to make something useful for your home, school or Section. You could make a chair, a table, a storage solution, toys, decorations—the possibilities are endless.
Review
- What do you know now that you did not know before?
- What did you learn about waste? How can our trash harm the planet? How can you reuse and reduce your trash?
- How do you think trash can harm wildlife, on land or in the ocean?
- What can you do in your community to raise awareness about reducing waste and recycling?
- What elements of STEM were in this adventure? Science? Technology? Engineering? Mathematics?
- What did you like about the adventure? What did you not like? How would you do this adventure differently?
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Remember to submit your activities on our Scouts for Sustainability Take Action Map
Materials
- Calculators
- Paper and pencil
- Trash and recyclables collected during the week.
- Scales
- Boxes and measuring tapes to calculate the volume of the trash
- Copies of the “How long it takes to decompose” poster
- Tools to build something out of the trash (scissors, glue, strings, masking tape, etc.)
Keep it Simple
- Learn about what recycling is. How are things recycled in your area? Try a recycling relay race!
Take it Further
- How can you share what you have learned with other people? Find a creative way to teach others about recycling and how they can reduce their waste, including how they can reduce their waste at their next camp.
