The Western Conference on Science Education

Creating a waste free tomorrow: Assessing waste literacy and behaviour change in grade 5 students

Somerville House, room 3345

There is a growing necessity to implement awareness campaigns to inform behaviour change toward more sustainable consumption of plastic products, and a need to train science students in outreach communication and teaching. We’ve developed a school program to improve scientific and waste literacy among elementary students. Graduate and Undergraduate student volunteers co-created lesson plans exploring our relationship with plastics: 1. Plastic Cycle, 2. Watersheds and their Relationship to Litter, 3. Impacts of Plastic on Ecosystems, and 4. Solutions to Plastic Pollution. The lessons include direct connections to research by members of our team, all early-career scientists with a focus on understanding the sources, fate, effects, and mitigation of plastic pollution. Using a peer-to-peer framework, lessons are delivered by university student instructors, offering learning and mentoring opportunities across many levels of education. To reduce barriers of accessibility, classroom visits are offered at no charge. To assess the effectiveness of these lesson plans, we are studying how the lessons impact knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported behaviours toward aquatic litter and plastic pollution in participating children. For this study, we administered short paper questionnaires pre-and post-participation in the school program from October 2021 to May 2023. The questionnaire was administered before the first class and then several weeks later. Results will be shared at this conference which can inform strategies to engage children in the topic of plastic pollution in aquatic ecosystems. We'll also share our experience creating this program with the post-secondary students. This research was approved by our institutional research ethics board.