• Home
  • Books
    • A River’s Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn
    • Planet Ocean
    • Eavesdropping on Elephants
    • Neema’s Reason To Smile
    • Zoo Scientists to the Rescue
    • Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem
    • Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
    • Ebola: Fears and Facts
    • Jingle the Brass
    • Nugget on the Flight Deck
    • Surviving Animal Attacks
    • Elite Operations series
    • Energy Lab series
    • QuickReads Fluency Library
    • Books for English language-learners
    • Writers write all kinds of things
  • Author Visit Programs
    • FAQs
    • Calendar
  • Blog
  • Educator Resources
    • STEM + Literacy Activities
    • LitLinks
    • Teacher Guides
    • KidLit creators who make kids want to read
  • Writer Resources
    • Manuscript or Proposal Critiques
  • Who is Patricia Newman?
  • Contact
    • Stay In Touch
Patricia NewmanPatricia Newman
Sibert Honor Children's Book Author & Environmentalist
  • Home
  • Books
    • A River’s Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn
    • Planet Ocean
    • Eavesdropping on Elephants
    • Neema’s Reason To Smile
    • Zoo Scientists to the Rescue
    • Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem
    • Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
    • Ebola: Fears and Facts
    • Jingle the Brass
    • Nugget on the Flight Deck
    • Surviving Animal Attacks
    • Elite Operations series
    • Energy Lab series
    • QuickReads Fluency Library
    • Books for English language-learners
    • Writers write all kinds of things
  • Author Visit Programs
    • FAQs
    • Calendar
  • Blog
  • Educator Resources
    • STEM + Literacy Activities
    • LitLinks
    • Teacher Guides
    • KidLit creators who make kids want to read
  • Writer Resources
    • Manuscript or Proposal Critiques
  • Who is Patricia Newman?
  • Contact
    • Stay In Touch
Trash Team 4-week challenge-all weeks

LitLinks: Trash Team Litter-ature for Waste Litter-acy

July 15, 2020 LitLinks, LitLinks-Grade 3-5, LitLinks-Grade 6-8 No Comments
LitLinks Logo-1 (2)

GUEST BLOGGER SUSAN DEBRECENI


The power of stories is one that can inspire a young mind and lead to real change. At the University of Toronto Trash Team, we have our own story. We built a team of students and early-career researchers to engage with our local communities. Our mission is to increase waste literacy through community outreach, solutions-based research, and school programming. Each member of the Trash Team has a story. We share that story beyond the University of Toronto in unique ways to spark the curiosity of youth. Typically, this takes the form of in-person presentations, community clean-ups and school visits. Our team had also created Grade 5 lesson plans that we were just beginning to take into the classroom. Then COVID-19 hit.

The Trash Team goes virtual

COVID-19 held each of our team members in our respective homes. To maintain our mission, it came time to be even more creative than usual to engage with young minds. It was time to move our programming online! Since March, we have held various online events, and posted several at-home activities. Here, we highlight one very special series of online events.

A novel spin on storytelling

On a cold day in late-March, one member suggested, “Hey, why not lead a virtual story time for kids?” This question was the seed for our 4-week series that combined environmental literature with true stories from our plastic pollution lab – Litter-ature for Waste Litter-acy. 

Litter-ature for Waste Litter-acy

This unique event brought together authors, scientists and curious young minds on an adventure in waste education and waste reduction. Each week, special guest authors read from children’s book about plastic pollution. We then featured a young scientist from our lab, who shared their personal adventures in research. The books we read included:

  • Plastic, Ahoy! written by Patricia Newman with photographs by Annie Crawley
  • One Plastic Bag by Miranda Paul
  • The Plastic Problem by Rachel Salt
  • Plastic-Sea: A Bird’s Eye View by Kirsti Blom & Geir Wing Gabrielsen.

Throughout the entire event, our team interacted with our audience. We asked and answered questions to encourage youth to take action and make a positive difference.

When the presentations ended, the learning continued! We launched a 4-week waste reduction challenge that kids could do at home to reduce and reuse waste. We wanted them to take the ideas they just heard and put them into action in their very own homes!

Are you ready to take the challenge?

  • First, start by listening in on two weeks of wasteLITTERature, with the book, Plastic, Ahoy! You will hear author Patricia Newman and underwater photographer Annie Crawley. In addition, Professor Chelsea Rochman (featured in the book) and Clara Thaysen (a Masters student at the University of Toronto who is studying the deep sea) will talk about their work.

Part I: Plastic, Ahoy! with Patricia Newman and Chelsea Rochman

Part 2: Plastic, Ahoy! with Annie Crawley and Clara Thaysen

  • After brushing up on your knowledge of plastic pollution, take the 4-week challenge. See how you can reduce waste in creative and fun ways at home. When you’re done, celebrate all of your incredible work with an official Certificate of Expertise in Waste Reduction.
  • Download all four weeks of the 4-week challenge (see featured image above)
  • Download your Certificate of Expertise in Waste Reduction
Trash Team 4-week challenge certificate

Now that you’re an at-home waste reduction expert, have a bit of fun and explore more activities, crafts and lesson plans put together by our team.

  • Activity Sheets and Crafts
  • Waste Literacy Lesson Plans (designed for Grade 5 but enjoyed by all ages), including the Plastic Cycle, Watersheds and Their Relationship to Litter, and Impacts of Plastics on Ecosystems
Trash Team Raccoons1

SusanDebreceni -headshot

Susan Debreceni is passionate about connecting individuals with meaningful opportunities. She spent the last decade supporting a national network of community volunteers through the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. She is now thrilled to lend her outreach expertise with the University of Toronto Trash Team. Susan guides and mentors this student team as they continue to bring waste literacy to local schools and community.


Click for more LITLINKS STEM + Literacy activities

Tags: STEM+LiteracySTEM+Literacy Natural Science
No Comments
Share
0

You also might be interested in

Seasonal-Cut-Murals

LitLinks: STEAM lessons connecting science, literacy, and art

Aug 21, 2019

GUEST BLOGGER: MIRA REISBERG, PhD Hi everyone, I am so[...]

American alligator - Everglades National Park

LitLinks: Using the Everglades to develop a love of nature

Sep 30, 2020

GUEST BLOGGER ROBERTA GIBSON Marjory Saves the Everglades: The Story[...]

Neema's Reason To Smile cover

LitLinks: Math + financial literacy connections to a non-STEM title

Apr 1, 2020

GUEST BLOGGER DONNA ROSENBLUM Finding math in a non-STEM book[...]

Leave a Reply

Your email is safe with me.
Cancel Reply

Click the logo to have LitLinks delivered to your inbox

LitLinks Logo-2022

Author Visits

https://youtu.be/ziN0UrqaDYI

Post Categories:

Blog Archive

Top Posts

LitLinks: How to share our ocean connections with kids and teens

LitLinks: Let’s learn to decode photos in STEM nonfiction

LitLinks: How Elephants Can Make Your Sound Unit ROAR!

LitLinks: Easy ways to build students’ science communication skills

Proof that science connects kids to the larger world

Recent Comments

  • Annie Lynn on LitLinks: Best practices for making connections between kidlit and science My pleasure! We are stronger together!✌🏽💖🎶🔬📚🌻
  • Patricia Newman on LitLinks: Best practices for making connections between kidlit and science Thank you for putting the A in STEM, Annie!
  • Annie Lynn on LitLinks: Best practices for making connections between kidlit and science As usual, this was a fantastic, helpful, detailed post that…

I also write for STEM Tuesday

STEM Tuesday
Empowering young readers to act

Latest Blog Posts

  • LitLinks: An easy lesson to help students write a desert rap
    LitLinks: An easy lesson to help students write a desert rap
  • LitLinks: 5 ways to use nonfiction kidlit in the classroom
    LitLinks: 5 ways to use nonfiction kidlit in the classroom

What's happening on Twitter

  • It's #internationdayofthegirl 🥳 Celebrate #girlpower w books abt ♀️ #scientists #WomenInSTEM #scicomm #STEM…  http://t.co/ALmXSCYDrs 
  • 5 months ago
  • RT  @mstewartscience : Love seeing all those smiling faces!
  • 5 months ago

Follow @PatriciaNewman

Action Shots

Check out the STEM Tuesday Blog

© 2023 — Patricia Newman

  • Home
  • Books
    • A River’s Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn
    • Planet Ocean
    • Eavesdropping on Elephants
    • Neema’s Reason To Smile
    • Zoo Scientists to the Rescue
    • Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem
    • Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
    • Ebola: Fears and Facts
    • Jingle the Brass
    • Nugget on the Flight Deck
    • Surviving Animal Attacks
    • Elite Operations series
    • Energy Lab series
    • QuickReads Fluency Library
    • Books for English language-learners
    • Writers write all kinds of things
  • Author Visit Programs
    • FAQs
    • Calendar
  • Blog
  • Educator Resources
    • STEM + Literacy Activities
    • LitLinks
    • Teacher Guides
    • KidLit creators who make kids want to read
  • Writer Resources
    • Manuscript or Proposal Critiques
  • Who is Patricia Newman?
  • Contact
    • Stay In Touch
Prev Next