How much trash do you waste? A few weeks ago the second graders
started their unit on recycling. We read some books and watched
a few video clips and had many discussions that lead to
questions. In one of our video clips it had mentioned that each
person usually throws out about 1,000 pounds of trash a year.
Astonished, the second graders decided to conduct their own
experiment to see if that would be possible and maybe compare
that average to themselves. Two weeks ago the second graders
embarked on that experiment to collect all their trash from the
time they reach school to the time they leave. Each student was
given a ziplock back to collected with trash. Anything that they
would have normally threw away in the trash can was to go into
the ziplock. Due to health and safety issues, no used paper
towels, kleenex, napkins or food products were collected.
However, if they did use those items they were to tally it on
the ziplock. Yesterday, the students began making their own
graphs of the trash that was collec