Trash my ad
Year level
Upper Primary to Lower Secondary with a simplified activity for younger students listed at end of
lesson plan.
Lesson description
This lesson is based around the Trash my ad campaign created by Keep Australia Beautiful
asking young people to create a TV or radio advertisement about anti-littering to motivate people
to do the right thing and place litter in the bin. Students view previous entries for inspiration and
then produce their own advertisement.
In this lesson students will become aware that:
 advertising is a key strategy for bringing about behaviour change
 there are a number of different media that can be used for conveying a message,
including amongst others, video, radio and posters
 effective advertisements are memorable and easily understood
 there are many different tools that can be used to convey a message including humour,
emotion, special visual effects, facts and catchy jingles.
Curriculum links
Year 5
Plan, draft and publish imaginative and informative and persuasive print and multimodal texts,
choosing text structures, language features, images and sound appropriate to purpose and
audience (English - ACELY1704)
Years 5 and 6
Plan, produce and present media artworks for specific audiences and purposes using responsible
media practice (The Arts - ACAMAM064)
Year 6
Plan, draft and publish imaginative and informative and persuasive texts, choosing and
experimenting with text structures, language features, images and digital resources appropriate
to purpose and audience (English - ACELY1714)
Year 7
Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, selecting aspects of subject
matter and particular language, visual, and audio features to convey information and ideas
(English - ACELY1725)
Brisbane City Council
Rethink Your Rubbish Lesson Plan: Litter – Trash My Ad
Years 7 and 8
Develop and refine media production skills to shape the technical and symbolic elements of
images, sounds and text for a specific purpose and meaning (The Arts - ACAMAM068)
Plan, structure and design media artworks that engage audiences (The Arts - ACAMAM069)
Year 8
Create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that raise issues, report events and advance
opinions, using deliberate language and textual choices, and including digital elements as
appropriate (English - ACELY1736)
Procedure
1. Students view anti-littering advertisements produced by young people as part of a Keep
Australia Beautiful campaign called Trash My Ad. Advertisements can be viewed on
youtube by searching ‘YouTube Trash My Ad’.
2. Discuss with students techniques that the creators have used to convey their anti-littering
message. For example, humour or shock.
3. Students work in small groups to create their own advertisements.
4. The ads are then shown to the whole class and students vote in a secret ballot as to
which three ads they think were the best and why.
5. Discuss results,
6. Videos are then shown to the rest of the school to encourage students not to litter within
the school.
Simplified activity
Students create posters or an advertising jingle to encourage people not to litter.
Brisbane City Council
Rethink Your Rubbish Lesson Plan: Litter – Trash My Ad