Litter We Know
Provided by: Learning for a Sustainable Future|Published on: July 10, 2026|Last updated: September 26, 2026
Grades: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Type: Activity - Outdoors
Subjects: Science, Civics, Mathematics
Authors: Learning for a Sustainable Future
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Synopsis
- This outdoor activity has students clean up litter in different areas of the schoolyard to quantify and categorize litter present.
- Students then discuss how litter can harm wildlife, brainstorm ways to reduce schoolyard litter, and can extend the work by researching diversion rates, redesigning packaging, or writing to manufacturers.
Teaching Materials
Classroom Implementation:
- Review safety protocols and instructions with students before going outside.
- If your school yard is not littered, consider going to your nearest public park instead (check it first for dangerous items, such as needles and glass).
- The wildlife-impact discussion is a good hook for talking about impacts on whole ecosystems and food webs due to human activity.
Differentiation:
- Adjust the graphing complexity to your grade level, from simple picture or bar graphs for younger students to pie graphs and percentages for older ones.
- For older students, use knowledge of areas and ratios to calculate how much litter they would expect to see in their town if it was littered at the same rate as the school yard.
Extensions:
- For older students, use this activity to launch and model a one-week survey where students count and categorize everything they throw away.
- The follow-up options turn the activity into an extended project on school waste reduction, consumer packaging, and civic action, connecting data to real-world citizenship.
This resource is a schoolyard litter clean up activity. Students are engaged in environmental stewardship and in designing a plan to reduce litter in their schoolyard. This activity is powerful in that students can immediately see the fruits of their labor, hopefully inspiring future work in conservation. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Teaching Tips
Standards
Resource Type and Format
Scientist Reviewed
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Our review process ensures that every resource in our library reflects the current state of climate science.
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