Created by

William Archacki

Gerard Girstl

Elizabeth Mulhearn

Introduction:

I don’t know about you but I do not like to look at, smell, or touch garbage. Do You? However, my environment and yours is being polluted and garbage is becoming a tremendous problem. The landfills where all the trash goes that we produce are filling up quickly. Landfills are filling up quickly and we are running out of places that we can get rid of our garbage. If we continue filling up the landfills as quickly as we are eventually we are going to have to live on top of the trash that we threw away years ago.

In this web quest you will search for the remedy that will help millions. This remedy will help reduce the amount of garbage that ends up in the landfills so that they do not fill up so quickly. This remedy must also help us reuse products that do not have to be thrown away. There are many alternatives to pollution. It will be your task in this web quest to find a solution.

If you do not believe that this problem exists, just look around. This is your environment and it is your job to keep it clean and make sure that it will remain clean for yourself and your family. The reduce, reuse, and recycle process starts with you and the environment that you live in. One of the places that you produce the most amount of trash is in your school.

§ Every day at School 21 there are many recyclable items thrown away; Styrofoam trays, plastic bottles, cans, plastic utensils and endless amounts of paper.

§ Students are not directed or taught the importance to separate recyclable materials, and this is seriously affecting our schools community and environment.

§ Students are being shown that not recycling is an appropriate behavior, and School 21’s “Social Norm”. Students then carry these practices to their homes and lives, therefore affecting our community, and eventually our planet.

YOU CAN HELP!!!

You and your class have been chosen by a panel of teachers and the principal to conduct research, inform others in the school community, and become leaders that will change the world. You as active members of change will present your findings to our school community and help them become aware of the problems that the world faces at this time. Everyone must do there part in order to save ourselves from serious problems that are arising from the neglect of the past.

The Task:

Your class will be conducting research on the problem of proper disposal of trash, creating posters using the six steps of the PPA that will inform others that a change is needed.

§ Fourth and Fifth Grade students are going to research the proper disposal of garbage and why it is so important to the environment.

§ Create a new policy (using the six steps of the PPA) to help solve this dilemma at School 21.

§ Complete PPA related activity sheets for each step.

§ Each of the PPA steps must be included on the poster.

For more examples of project posters click bellow

http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/examples/

The Process:

For this project you will be working in groups of four to create an informative poster. This poster will have the six steps of the PPA to convey the message that proper disposal of garbage is important to our school and the environment.

Step 1: Complete a Survey

Take the School Litter Survey to see what you know. Write the answers on a separate sheet of paper. Then in your groups discuss your answers to the survey. Talk about the survey and why you chose the answers that you did.

Step 2: Developing a Solution to a Problem through Research

Using the Public Policy Analysis research the problem of non-recycling at School 21 and develop a new policy to resolve the problem. Using the six steps of the PPA develop a plan for changing the ways that School 21 removes waste and ways that the school community can help our environment by creating less waste products.

Click on the following six PPA activity sheets.

Complete them using the internet resources.

1. What is the problem?

2. What is the evidence?

3. What are the causes?

4. What is the existing policy?

5. What policies can you create to solve the problem?

6. What is the best policy to correct the problem?

Use the PPA activity sheets as a guide for your research. Use the links in the resource section to help you complete the activity sheets.

Step 3: Creating the Poster

Create an informative poster that states the problem and a solution to the problem that your group decides is best.

Posters must include:

- Title

- A stated problem

- The six steps of the PPA

- Research found as evidence

- Poster should be visually appealing

Place the elements of the poster in position:

• The title will appear across the top.
• A brief introduction will appear at the upper left.
• The conclusions will appear at the lower right.
• Methods and Results will fill the remaining space.

Resources:

Use the following web site links to complete the six activity sheets.

General resources:

www.google.com

www.yahoo.com

Specific resources:

§ www.recyclezone.org.uk/tz_wasteweb.aspx

§ www.recyclenow.com/fun_stuff/recycler/index.html

§ www.recyclezone.org.uk/home_fz.aspx

§ www.epa.gov/kids/

§ www.dnr.state.wi.us/eek/

§ www.ikecoalition.org/

§ library.thinkquest.org/6076/

§ www.unep.org/Tunza/children/

§ pbskids.org/zoom/activities/action/way04.html

Evaluation:

Use the rubric to help you self evaluate your own work.

Poster Grading Rubric 30 POINT SCALE

The grade for your poster presentation will be based on the mechanics of your poster construction (i.e. did you follow the guidelines) and on your interaction with your laboratory instructor as you explain what you did in the project.

Poster Construction

	Exceeds Expectations	Meets Expectations	Does not meet expectations
Points earned	4	3-2	1 or 0
Titles and Sub-titles	Titles and subtitles are clear and enhance readability	Most titles and subtitles are clear and enhance readability	Few or no titles or sub-titles to clarify text
Text size and color	All text is clear and readable, a few changes in size and color enhance understanding	Text is clear and readable, a few changes in size and color enhance understanding	Some text is clear and readable, frequent changes in size and color do not enhance understanding
Writing	Well written and organized, clear, easy to follow	Adequately written and organized, reasonably easy to follow.	Poorly written and organized, unclear, hard to follow
Data Presentation	Data presented in clear, labeled tables, graphs or spectra	Data presented in graphs or spectra	Raw data presented

Questions

Group participation	All members of group answer questions	Most members of group answer questions	One member of group answers questions
Understanding of theory	Answers show a high level of understanding of the theory behind the project	Answers show that most of the theory is understood with a couple of minor misunderstandings	Major misunderstandings of underlying theory
Description of experimental work	Group members could describe accurately what they did and why	Group members could describe most of what they did and why	Group members had trouble describing what they did
Further work	Suggestions for further work are presented and explained	Suggestions for further work are presented	No suggestions for further work are presented

Conclusion:

Thank you for your participation in this project. By participating in this Web quest you have learned about the six steps of public policy. You have become Public Policy Analysts. You have identified an existing problem of proper garbage disposal and the effects it has on the environment. Then you created solutions to the problem and identified the importance of these solutions. Thank you again and congratulations on creating a cleaner and more environmentally friendly environment.

Standards:

English Language Arts

Standard 1:   Language for Information and Understanding

Students will listen, speak, read, and write for information and understanding. As listeners and readers, students will collect data, facts, and ideas; discover relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and use knowledge generated from oral, written, and electronically produced texts. As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language to acquire, interpret, apply, and transmit information.

Social Studies

Standard 5:   Civics, Citizenship, and Government

Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the necessity for establishing governments; the governmental system of the United States and other nations; the United States Constitution; the basic civic values of American constitutional democracy; and the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship, including avenues of participation.

Mathematics, Science, and Technology

Standard 1:    Analysis, Inquiry, and Design

Students will use mathematical analysis, scientific inquiry, and engineering design, as appropriate, to pose questions, seek answers, and develop solutions.

Standard 2:   Information Systems

Students will access, generate, process, and transfer information using appropriate technologies.

Standard 5:   Technology

Students will apply technological knowledge and skills to design, construct, use, and evaluate products and systems to satisfy human and environmental needs.