Litter Scavenger Hunt
By: Ruth, Christine, Meera & Vimal
Objective: Students will become aware of various forms of litter around their school, discuss the effect
of litter on the environment and ways to reduce and reuse litter
Materials: garbage bags and scavenger hunt list of items
Around the school yard
Paper
Something left by a person
Something aluminum
Food wrapper
Something blue
Something plastic
Something bigger than your nose
Discussion and Plan:
- What is it? Have you ever littered? Why do people litter? Do you try not to litter? Why?
- Discuss scavenger hunt, goals, list of items, safety procedures, time limit
- Hand out garbage bags and scavenger hunt list, then go outside to explore school grounds
- Return to class, lay out litter (on newspapers, or in bags) for viewing
- Have students wash their hands
- Review items and discuss where they came from, what the grounds looked like before items got
there
- Discuss the effects of litter on the environment (wildlife, habitat, aesthetics, reusing/recycling)
- What can we do to reduce the harmful effects? What might we do to reuse “garbage”?
Continuing activities:
- Create art with recycling or waste from home (students bring in cleaned items they would
otherwise send to disposal). Can create plastic bottle light fixtures, structures out of plastic
bottles, collect variety of coloured bottle caps over the year and use to colour a large scale
drawing, origami with class recycling paper, collages out of coloured cardboard, stamps and
prints out of Styrofoam trays etc.
- Read a story or create a project to further explore how litter effects wildlife in different habitats
- Draw a picture/make a texture rubbing, write a poem or create a jingle about something they
would like to remember from the activity.
- Spread their learning by writing about the experience on a class blog, creating awareness
posters for the school, gathering a group to collect litter regularly.
- Students can sort materials into categories and graph data