Plastic theme engages students to develop knowledge about plastic pollution and through inquiry based approach, they will develop new solutions and create change in their community. This topic can create curiosity among the learners around plastics they use in their daily lives, understand the challenges; how it impacts us as well as our environment/natural wildlife, analyze the options in designing the alternate ways to reduce plastic use, develop investigating skills or connect dots with their surroundings. This topic has immense potential to sensitize the young learners about this ongoing problem leading to destruction of human as well as wildlife. This topic will help the students to connect their previous knowledge to what they are going to learn in the following lessons. This inquiry project involves activities which will give multiple opportunities to relate with the content as well as design thinking approach. It will help them to get aware about the real world issues out of the school environment. Through this lesson, the students will learn about the prevalence of plastics and how durability and utility of plastics have contributed to its widespread use and negative implications on the environment.

How does this lesson fit within the larger inquiry project?

This lesson is the first phase of inquiry cycle, where students engage themselves in brainstorming and ask questions related to the topic and cross questioning will help generate interest among the learners to further engage in next lessons being investigative and reflective part of the lesson plan.

How does this project incorporate the inquiry cycle?

Since, this is the first lesson introducing the lesson, it incorporates the ask and investigative phase of inquiry cycle, where the audio visual aids and group discussions will ignite the thinking skills of young learners activating their prior knowledge and further engaging them in finding more information about plastic pollution from variety of resources.

What is the problem with plastics?

How are plastics produced?

How much plastics are disposed every year?

How plastics are harmful to the environment?

The inquiry approach used here in this lesson is mainly design thinking keeping in mind the human centered principles while keeping students in focus. The activities are planned in various stages-Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. (Ramunas Balcaitis, 2019)

In this lesson, the first phase of empathizing the learners about the problem of plastics will be taken care.

Empathize: The first activity of brainstorming and mind mapping is created to empathize with the learners to understand their previous knowledge and experiences from the past and engaging them actively to kick start the process of inquiry.

Rationale

Inquiry based approach will develop critical thinking ability among the learners and hands on activities will foster experiential learning where learners will indulge in team work, problem solving and creative thinking by creating solutions to this ongoing environmental problem. In this lesson, an integrated pedagogical approach will be implemented where Environmental science will be connected with data handling, art and geographic ideologies.

Another important inquiry learning in this lesson will be that students will be at full control over their learning by giving responses as per their past experience and local surroundings.

*What aspects of the inquiry are the most challenging and meaningful for students?

The most challenging aspects of inquiry for the students will be to empathize with their environmental issues, but with integrated approach and engaging learning environment, the topic will engage the students intellectually reflecting upon the current problem of plastic pollution. The brainstorming session with mind mapping, investigative research projects will create a deep engaging learning experience for both teachers and students.

*What makes this inquiry valuable, meaningful, and “alive” for the students and teachers?

Plastics are an indispensable resources of our life and this theme engages students to develop knowledge about plastic pollution which will foster critical thinking and problem solving skills among the young minds to come up with creative solutions to this problems.

The use of audio visual aids will allow them to connect with this ongoing problem and hands on activities will encourage the students to ask questions, investigate on the topic, evaluate their findings and invent creative ways to reduce this problem further come up with their sustainable solutions to this ongoing problem.

*How do I define learning and success in this inquiry? How is learning expressed and articulated in peer, self and teacher assessments?

*How do I connect students with each other, with experts in the field, with larger communities and nature, and across disciplines?

The audio visual aids will help students connect with the topic from natural perspective like carbon foot printing, plastic disposal in oceans and rivers, recycling of plastics, etc.

*How do I reflect on the inquiry together, and/or collaborate with others?

Through their communication, students acquire, develop and transform ideas and information, and make connections with others to share their ideas, express their individuality, further their learning, and get things done.

Students process information from a variety of sources, including thoughts and feelings that arise from the subconscious and unconscious mind and from embodied cognition, to create new understandings.

They exhibit a sense of self-worth, self-awareness, and positive identity to become confident individuals who take satisfaction in who they are and what they can do.

Human actions that affect natural environment with the use and disposal of plastics.

i)       How much plastic do we use and dispose every day?

ii)      Where does the plastic you disposed go and what happens after that?

Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal, local, or global interest.

How much plastic waste do you generate in a day?

Bio-indicators: Effect of disposal of plastics on plants, animals and human life.

How will I incorporate Indigenous knowledge and principles of learning?       

The brainstorming session, group discussions, investigative research and reflections from students on human activities causing plastic pollution will help them to incorporate the learning principles from indigenous knowledge by bringing their experiences from local communities about the usage of plastics in common households.

The classrooms have a diverse environment and students not only come from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds, but also have diverse home life, experiences, and linguistic set ups. The students will be asked to find out about the total consumption and current situation of plastic pollution in their household and share their reflections on the same at the end of the lesson. This way the lesson will promote indigenous education where learners will become aware about their local community and their practices to reduce this problem.  

5 minutes

A video will be shown and students will be asked to reflect upon the things they learned from the video

(PowerPoint Presentation-Attached)

Students will watch the video and note down the facts related to the topic and further discuss with the class about their opinions and thoughts about the same.

Computer/Laptop

Pen Paper

Video- The Reality of plastic (National Geographic Society, 2020)

• Giving students ample opportunities to learn from their own experiences.
• Teaching as a facilitator not expert or lecture

•  Clear communication between teacher-student and student-student
• Building trust among the student by letting them choose the project as per their choice and creative ability.

The lesson demonstration was an important step in completion of this inquiry project as this was the point where theory was coming into practice. It was important to learn about the execution of the plan through demonstration to understand and reflect upon the inclusion of inquiry approach in an actual classroom setting. The main requisites of a successful lesson for an educator is to gain insight on what they do in a classroom, why they do that, and whether it works out with the diverse learners or not. Developing this practice of reflections will create a strong foundation for improvement in teaching and learning. Therefore, the presented lesson on ‘Plastic Pollution’ is an engaging theme to empathize the learners about their environment and creating awareness about their social responsibility towards local community. The planned activities in the lesson plan was an integrative approach to develop analytical skills and critical thinking among learners through data handling or gathering information about the materials around them where they participated actively in discussions as well as gained knowledge about the excessive use of plastics in their daily lives. The data handling activity really engaged the participants to understand and reflect upon the daily use of the plastics in their household. This was the starting point of the lesson to make them aware about the problem which was extended with a video on reality of plastics, which helped them to connect it with their previous activity. There was one point where improvement was required and that was in the second activity where the audience had to give examples on things made with plastics. It took time for them to understand what was actually been asked to do and that was a learning point for me to include more examples in that portion which required clarity and the star of the lesson was the extended activity which was given with a rubric for assessment and was much appreciated. Overall, it was an engaging lesson for the participants as well as me, and they appreciated the efforts involved in creation and execution of activities which were appropriate for including inquiry approach in a classroom.