We all know that plastic is becoming a huge global problem. Whilst plastic products are a part of our everyday lives, more must be done to reduce the amount of plastic we produce in the first place as well as ensuring what we produce is reused or recycled. It is vital that we minimise both production and consumption.
There are a lot of complex issues around plastics and the negative impact on the environment that are important for pupils to both understand and develop a sense of agency around. The problem around plastics is strongly linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production. One of the targets for this SDG is “By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.”
"It made my consider stopping the use of single use plastic" Duncan S2
The Plastics Challenge
At Practical Action we have produced a set of teaching materials to help pupils aged 9-14 understand the science of plastics, the environmental impact of plastics and what the action they can take to make a difference. From a starting point of plastic waste in the UK the global issue around plastics is introduced through the eyes of children in Nepal who collect plastic wastes to sell to scrap dealers. This helps make local to global connections straight away and connects the use of plastic here with the lives of others around the world.
Why is disposal such a big problem?
Plastic is forever. It takes around 700 years for a plastic bottle to break up. They will not decompose or biodegrade and get absorbed by nature. They will ‘photo-degrade’ which means they will turn into little toxic bits of themselves.
Pupils look at the particular problem of disposal of plastics by looking at time it takes for a number of items to decompose. This is the waste timeline activity that you will find here.
"We have learnt a lot more about the impact of plastic on the environment" James S1
Life Cycle Analysis
One way to help pupils understand the complexity of making a plastic product sustainable is to introduce them to Life Cycle Analysis, where they look at plastics from production through to disposal, and suggest how to improve the sustainability of the whole process using the 4 R’s…Reduce, Recycle, Reuse, Rethink.
Are Bioplastics the answer?
Pupils go on to explore different types of plastic and the advances being made in more sustainable and plastics. They start by making bioplastics then research and debate the issues around replacing plastics with biodegradable plastics and bioplastics, including the link to the biofuels debate.
Plastics into profit
The main part of the challenge is for pupils to design and make a product either by recycling or reusing plastic. This links well to enterprise and several schools have used the challenge to produce products such as coasters, bags that pupils go on to sell. The pupils at Culloden Academy produced a range of products as illustrated in the photo.
"We learnt that we can make useful products out of plastic waste" Pupil S2
A teacher’s perspective
Katie Hudson, a biology teacher, at Culloden Academy has used the material and found them really useful.
‘’I really liked that the plastics challenge helped pupils understand the global impact of plastics and what they can do to reduce plastic waste. The wider achievement course in S2 this year has been structured round the Sustainable Development Goals, the plastics challenge was perfect as a project work for SDG14: Life below water and SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production.
The students will write up their plastics challenge to apply for a Discovery CREST award
After trialling four of the Practical Action STEM Challenges in Wider Achievement this year, the plan is to embed plastics challenge, along with the other Practical Action STEM Challenges, into the BGE science curriculum for S1 or S2.’’
Find out more about the work of Practical Action
