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Database Provider

Author

BBC News

Grades

6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th

Subjects

Science, Earth and Space Sciences

Resource Type

  • Articles and Websites

Regional Focus

Global

#Trashtag: The Online Challenge Cleaning Places Up

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Synopsis
  • This article introduces students to the #Trashtag challenge, where people go to a place, clean it up, and post before and after pictures on social media.
  • The article conveys an important message that we need to get to the root of the problem by first refusing to purchase disposable items, then reduce, reuse, and (as a last resort) recycle.
Teaching Tips

Positives

  • The social media component of this challenge will be engaging for teenage students.
  • The article provides nice images to accompany the text and includes examples of posts from around the world.
  • The challenge encourages students to help keep the environment clean.

Additional Prerequisites

  • It may be beneficial to explain to students that many plastics are not able to be recycled and that disposable items are primarily made from new materials, not recycled materials.

Differentiation

  • Teachers can encourage students to participate in the challenge and share their before and after pictures with the class.
  • Students can create their own hashtag challenge to encourage their community members to participate in a particular activity related to the environment.
  • The teacher could design a campaign for waste management and divide students into teams, with each team having a specific task such as designing the logo, creating a hashtag, and choosing activities.
  • Another resource related to the topic is the video Team Marine - Young Voices for the Planet, which highlights a plastic waste reduction project led by teens in California.
Scientist Notes
This resource inspires students to engage in city cleaning by collecting solid waste and keeping their environment clean and green. Educators should note that if they were to implement this challenge, it requires hand gloves and other safety gear to prevent injury and skin infection. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
  • Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
    • ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
      • MS-ESS3-4 Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.
  • College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
    • Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
      • D4.7.6-8 Assess their individual and collective capacities to take action to address local, regional, and global problems, taking into account a range of possible levers of power, strategies, and potential outcomes.
      • D4.7.9-12 Assess options for individual and collective action to address local, regional, and global problems by engaging in self-reflection, strategy identification, and complex causal reasoning.
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