What Do You Value? A Question to Guide Us Through the Sustainability Discussion

Kathleen G Gormley

This unit is designed to bring awareness and information to my third grade students regarding single use plastics such as straws, shopping bags, take-out restaurant utensils. After they are presented with how these single use plastics impact the environment, my students would develop a position/stance detailing their decision about their personal use of these items. Third Grade ELA standards will be addressed throughout this unit. Students will interact with authentic literature being used as mentor texts. Students will create written essays. When discussing sustainability, everyone must decide what they value more and decide their course of action.

The students in my class will develop a research project and create a presentation in which they form a personal stance making a decision to use or not use a specific single use plastic item. As a class we will begin investigating straws and plastic shopping bags, students can decide to continue and expand on our initial discussions or they can choose another single use plastic item that is important to them. Students will develop reasons to support their stance and determine the impact their stance will have on the environment.