Story #1 – Why should we use Recycled Paper?

While planning our paper airplane challenge, Evan suggested that we use drawing paper to make the planes. Isabella said recycled paper would be a better choice. However, we noticed we did not have much recycled paper in the classroom. We decided to go towards the Grade 5 classes to see if they had a stack of recycled paper. On the way, Jacob and Evan met Ms. Jacqui and told her about their problem. They asked her if she knew where to find recycled paper. Ms. Jacqui was excited to tell them that she had some in her office. Jacob and Evan followed her to collect the paper.

• Jacob “Recycled paper is better because we can fold. Cardboard is too hard we can’t fold it, it will break.”
• Isabella “Clean paper, if you draw on it you can say that’s not my drawing, don’t put it away you can use the other side it is clean.”
• Evan “Recycled means everybody don’t want the paper. White paper is for drawing.” 

 

Story #2 – Used Pens

Three students from Grade 4 visited us with an important message. As part of their inquiry into systems and organisation, they are looking for ways to reuse colouring markers at NIS. They presented their idea to the children and asked for their support.

• Riccardo “Do you have pens that cannot draw with, the ink is gone?”
• Isabella “When they make a new ink, they will pour it in the old pens and it can be used again.”
• Jacob “Not just throw in the trash because that will just be trash. Then, there will be not many pens. There will be only 1 pen!”
• Archie “If you throw it in the garbage then it will get dirty and disgusting. That means it’s stinky. One time I put something in the garbage and I smelled it and it’s disgusting.”
• Isabella “If you throw it in the rubbish bin, they were a lot of time in there then it will be disgusting.”
• Jusnu “This box is no pens.”

Euno and Dahyun translated to share the plan for the used pen box.

• Adalyn “They will collect the dry markers saved in the box so they can get the markers filled with ink again.”
• Evan “Grade 4 will come every Thursday to collect the pens.”  
• Sea “Not dry pens not going into the box. Only dry pens in the box.”
• Finn “This box is for putting pens, green, purple, pens after they cannot be used anymore.” (in Mandarin)

The children were curious about the plan for the used pens and asked the students to return to share the process of refilling the pens.

 

The Process

The Grade 4 students returned with the used pens and tools to show their K2 friends how to reuse the coloured markers. They set up their station and shared the process.

Archie “They said they’re gonna put the ink in and then they’re gonna cut it and then put that in and they can give it back to us. If the pen is not working then put it in the box. Then, they can fix it. It will take so long. And then they are gonna put the pencils in the water and then when they’re done that they they can give it back to us. If a pencil can not work or crayon then we don’t want to waste it. We don’t know what to do if the pencil or crayon is not OK. We don’t know what to do and then can we call them and ask them what to do with the crayons as well.”

Suzy “They take the pen and then fill it up with water, because then they will work again.”

Riccardo “We want to use the pen to do something, Grade 4 buddies want to do something with the pen and they talk with us and then they go and bring a if they are not good we put in the basket. Then, they have water and then put it in. Some is easy to take off and some is not easy.”

Archie talked about recycling pieces of used crayons and leftover coloured pencils. We wonder if the children might explore this further.

 

Recycle? Waste?

Considering this developing interest in the concept of ‘recycling’ we decided to revisit two occasions where the children talked about ‘waste’.

• Isabella “People had drawn on the paper and they don’t want the paper anymore but someone else can use it, then the paper can be recycle paper.”
• Jacob “If no water in the pen, you can put it in the box and people will help cut it and put water in it so we can use the pen again.”
• Archie “We can flip the paper and use the other side of it.”
• Jacob “Broken stuff we can use them again. Some toys that broken.”
• Ethan “My mum throw away a pen at home.”
• Dahyun “My jacket is too small and then my mum give it away.”

We made a list of the things we throw away. We identified a few we wanted to discuss in depth.

Wasting water

• Archie “Wasting water means pouring it out on the ground outside.”
• Jacob “When you have water in the bathroom or kitchen, you keep the water open. If you don’t close it, that’s wasting water. Sometimes when people were not using the water and the water still open, that’s waste water.”

Wasting paper

• Archie “My brother wasted paper by pulling it out of the book. My brother made the paper airplane and he doesn’t want it, and I used it.”
• Jacob “Breaking drawing paper.”
• Evan “Throwing the paper away.”
• Riccardo “I always waste paper by cutting it.”
• Euno “My brother throw away a paper. I talk to my brother ‘why you throw the paper?’ He said ‘paper is wet’. Then he take another paper and another paper and so many used paper.”
• Sea “My brother’s friend used so many of my paper to draw. That is wasting paper.”

Wasting food

• Isabella “You don’t eat the food you have and waste it. It is in the rubbish bin.”
• Adalyn “Something you don’t want to eat is wasting. You can give another person to eat it.”
• Evan “My brother don’t want the food and my grandpa throws it to the sink.”
• Jacob “Something you don’t want to eat and you put it in the trash or sink, the wasps can eat it. Wasps like stinky food.”

Although the children shared many examples of waste, they believed they did not waste anything at school. We decided to gather evidence of waste throughout the day to present back to the children. 

We wonder what they notice and think about the evidence that has been collected.

 

Solving the Waste Problem

We have been talking about waste and recycling.

Jacob shared what he had learned about sorting and recycling and Archie shared photographs of food waste at home.

Isabella and Ethan had decided to repurpose the boxes they had at home. Isabella used the boxes to make a home for the cats in her compound to keep them warm during the winter. Ethan used his boxes to store objects.

The children recalled seeing similar waste bins around the school. A small group walked around the campus looking for and documenting the different locations the bins were at.

These conversations helped us think more about what ‘WE’ might want to do about the things we waste at school. 

Paper and Card Waste:

• Suzy “You can write small letters on the small paper.”
• Shemo “If we don’t want to use this paper again and don’t want to throw it into the bin, then what can we do?”
• Archie “Maybe we can make a recycle box for putting this kind of paper in.”
• Riccardo “We can make new paper with it.”
• Archie “We can erase it and cut it then you can draw on it. We can make paper from the leaves. People cut the tree and workers make the paper, they can use a machine to put the tree in.”
• Isabella “Is the tree inside soft or hard?”
• Archie “It’s hard so you put water to make it soft.”
• Isabella “You can put the paper in the water so the mark will go, then we can reuse it.”

Snack Fruit and Vegetable Waste:

• Riccardo “We can give the waste fruit to the worms outside, there are many more worms outside.”

Lunch Food Waste:

• Jacob “You don’t put the leftover lunch food into the trash, give it to Rosy, Ms. Hannah’s dog!”

(We asked the children to consider other possible solutions to the problem.)

Wastewater:

• Isabella “After the water go down the sink and drain, maybe some people can collect the water so we can reuse the water again.”

Next Steps:

Our brainstorm highlighted many different ways we can take action to solve some of the issues we found with waste.

• Riccardo “I have a shop and they can come and buy my toys and I get money.”
• Archie “When I was in India my mum said I have too many toys and I gave some away.”
• Euno “I eat all of my rice. When there is too much my mum throw in the bin.”
• Riccardo “Or you can keep it and then eat it later.”
• Shemo “What can we do with the fruits and vegetables we remain at school?”

Ms. Shemo “What can we do with the fruits and vegetables we remain at school?

The children decided to take the fruit and vegetable snacks to Ms. Hannah to ask her for some advice.

Over the next few days, the children will work in small groups to explore some of their theories about paper and seek more information about wastewater and composting at school.

 

Choices and Responsibility

We have been discussing the concept of waste, thinking critically about the choices we can make to reduce food waste. A photograph of the food waste in K2 during lunchtime led to many discussions about choices and our responsibility to reduce waste.

The children wondered how much food waste we had at lunchtime. We decided to collect the leftovers from the lunch boxes to find out.

How do we know how much food there is in the box?

We decided to read a book about measurement to help the children think about the tools we use to measure ingredients and food.Having seen the images in the book, we decided to weigh the leftover food. Mr. Arek told us there were scales in the cafeteria for this purpose. A team went over to the cafeteria to see if they could weigh the box of leftovers.

They learned that the box was 1111 grams. When we returned to the classroom the children used a scale Mr. Seth had in his classroom to see if it recorded a similar weight. They also tried weighing the box of food using a bathroom scale.

Children were unsure about the number that was recorded on all the different scales. On day one we had 1110g of food waste. We decided to use manipulatives and virtual tools to talk about big numbers.

Reflecting on the waste we had collected, the children decided to make an effort to reduce the waste by:

• eating more food from their lunch box
• trying to eat different foods they don’t normally try
• Remind their friends to eat more and talk less

On the second day, we weighed the leftovers to see if there was a difference. This time the scale recorded the weight of 534 grams.   

Was the food waste more or less than on day one?

We used the base 10 blocks to see what these two numbers looked like. We talked about regrouping the hundreds to make a 1000 when showing the number 1110 grams. We used the words more and less to describe the two lots of manipulatives.

Having seen that the second day’s waste was less than the first, we decided to explore some other ideas to reduce food waste. We discussed the different foods that were offered as options in the children’s school lunch box.

Which of these foods were their favourite which ones did they dislike eating and why?

The children drew and wrote to share all their favourite school lunch options.  

We wonder how we might organise the data that we collect about the school lunch.

• What does the data tell us about the food the children prefer to eat?
• How might we use this information to improve some of the choices we have for school lunch?

The Foods We Like to Eat

Our discussions about ‘food waste’ led to the children sharing all the foods they like to eat from their school lunch menu. They drew pictures of the different foods and included labels to share their ideas.

Then, we gathered to sort and organise the information we had collected.

We began to sort and group the different foods. The children discussed the data that emerged through this process. Rice, hot dogs and pizza were some of the children’s favourite foods.

How can we tell how many people like each type of food?

• Suzy “We can write numbers!”

 

The children included numbers on one side of the graph.

How can we tell which foods are in one column?

• Riccardo “We can write the words.”

We decided to add the names as Riccardo suggested.

The children discussed the idea of a title, to let people know what the graph was about. They agreed that it was ‘What K2A Like to Eat’.

 

• How do the rest of the children in the Early Years feel about their options for school lunch?
• Do they also like the same foods?

We wonder what choices the children might make because of their data collection.

How will they use the information to guide their next steps to reduce food waste? 

 

Student Presentation on the Recycling Center in Nanjing

Two years ago, Patrick was in K2A. During this time, he was interested in learning about waste and recycling and made a presentation to his class after conducting his research. Patrick is now in grade 2. He recently visited a waste recycling center in Nanjing in response to a unit of study in class and was excited to return to K2 to share what he had learned during his visit.

Oliver, who was in K2A the previous year, had created a poster about waste disposal while learning about recycling. Patrick referred to Oliver’s poster, explaining which items could be disposed of in the different coloured recycling bins. The children have noticed some of these bins around the school campus and were eager to learn more about their function in recycling.

Patrick shared many different photographs of the recycling center, providing explanations on the Process of transporting and sorting materials such as paper, food and plastic waste. He was excited to talk about how long it takes for materials such as paper, fabric and plastic to decompose.

The next day, we revisited Patrick’s presentation.

• Suzy “It is the machine.”

• Riccardo “He said it is so stinky.”
• Suzy “They take long to disappear.”
• Jacob “In soil. They will disappear in the soil. How many years it takes to disappear.”

• Suzy “Cardboard is harder than paper so it has the different number. It takes longer to disappear than paper.”
• Suzy “This is for the trees.”
• Isabella “This is from the food garbage. Its good for the plants.”
• Riccardo “So they can grow up big like the trees.”
• Jacob “I put the new soil in the new plants in the NIS garden, before K2. Ms. Hannah let me help she, I was putting new soil because then the trees will be grown up.”
• Evan “The things get grabbed and it takes it away.”
• Isabella “It can carry the weight of two elephants.”

• Ciel “This is wood. This is to make something new. Maybe wooden chairs.”

• Jacob “Wooden tables. Some people can make wood chairs and wood tables and something else with wood.”
• Riccardo “And have glass waste.”
• Junsu “This is cans. This is waste cans.”

• Jacob “It will make it into new bottles. Someone will use the fire to make it like disappear, then you can make the new bottle.”
• Suzy “They are recycling it.”
• Mohammad “This garbage. This is bad. Water bottle in garbage.”
• Suzy “Patrick wanted the NIS to be not so stinky. Too many trash. The children are making the trash because they have a lot of trash in their hands from the paper and bottles.”
• Jacob “And some cans. And wood and cans.”
• Suzy “He wants us not to make so many trash.”

Ms. Shemo showed the children her snack bag. It was made of plastic.

• Suzy “Because you have the plastic bag which is going to be the trash.”
• Jacob “Even the tissue.”
• Suzy “Ms. Shemo will throw the plastic bag in the bin and then it’s going to be stinky. It is going to take 30 years to disappear.”
• Jacob “If you don’t want to eat the bread, then it will be in the trash too.”
• Riccardo “You can buy a snack box to carry it to school.”
• Jacob “You can wash it then”

Ms. Hannah “Do you notice any trash waste around you at home?”

• Riccardo “I don’t have trash at home.”
• Hannah “How do you have no trash? What do you do?
• Riccardo “Its only a little bit because we don’t use so much. Because my mum throws the trash in the other places.”
• Euno “I only have a little bit trash at home because so many trash is waste food. Korean trash is different but here we can find other trash altogether. In Korea trash is not wasted.”

We wonder about the action the children will take in response to Patrick’s presentation on the importance of recycling.

 

 

Leftover Milk

We have been exploring the concept of ‘waste’ in many different situations around the classroom. We have been thinking about and taking action to solve some of the problems we have noticed with food and paper waste. We decided to gather the children to discuss yet another issue to do with food waste during lunchtime.   

We began by trying to identify the problem.

• Suzy “Some of the people don’t like the milk.”
• Euno “People wasting the milk. Because we drink one box of milk. We cannot drink the other box of milk.”

The children agreed that the leftover milk was going to waste. We began to look for ways we could solve this problem.

What are the things we can do?

• Suzy “We can drink the leftover milk during the snack time.”

We discussed this idea further and invited the children to think of possible solutions to the problem.

• Riccardo “We can use the milk to make something.”
• Isabella “We don’t have cups for the milk during snack time.”
• Evan “We can make cups.”
• Suzy “I made a cup during Olivia’s birthday.”
• Isabella “Bring the colour cups from the EY kitchen.”
• Suzy “We should ask the kitchen Ayi if we can use the cups. The Ayis who cook the lunch.”
• Jacob saw possibilities with reusing some of the empty milk cartons when he explained, “We can use the empty box to make something.”
• Suzy added, “Maybe we can use the box for making paper.”
• Riccardo “Ask other classes if they have plastic cups for us to use.”
• Evan “We can ask the big kitchen for some cups.”
• Dahyun “Go and ask other classes do they have some cups.” She suggested asking a Grade 3 class!
• Riccardo “Maybe grade two?”
• Euno “Maybe K1? When I was in K1, we have cups, white cups.”
• Riccardo “We can buy some cups.”

What if we don’t like the milk?

• Adalyn “We can try.”
• Suzy “We can drink a little bit, if you think you don’t like it you can try it again.”
• Riccardo “If you don’t like the milk, you shouldn’t pour the milk in your cup.”
• Isabella “If you don’t like milk you can drink water.”
• Suzy “You can drink juice, I see a K2B kid drinks the juice.”
• Evan “I think it comes from the big kitchen. If you want the juice, you can tell the Ayi of the kitchen.

Ricardo provided another suggestion…

• Riccardo “Use the milk to make something!”
• Ciel “Maybe we can make some chocolate milk.”
• Isabella “Hot cocoa.”
• Evan “Hot chocolate.”
• Euno “Strawberry milk.”
• Junsu “Banana milk.”
• Dahyun “Lemon milk.”
• We could hear the children’s excitement about flavoured milk.
• Evan “Yoghurt.”
• Jacob “We can make some chocolate yogurt.”
• Isabella “Ice-cream.”
• Evan “We can put vanilla in.”
• Suzy “We can put some strawberry jam.”
• Ciel “My sister can make ice cream with yoghurt. She put yoghurt in the fridge and she can make ice cream with the yoghurt. She puts some fruit when she makes the ice cream.”
• Jacob has not forgotten his solution to the waste problem saying…“We can use the milk boxes to make some funny things.”

As we listened to the children’s creative ideas and solutions, we noticed their developing understanding of the choices we can make to reduce waste. We look forward to exploring some of these suggestions, to create an action plan for their next steps.