Social Justice Issue:​ Earth Day Themed: Reducing Waste and Recycling in the School   
 
Grade:​ 6 
 
Subject:​ Social Studies, Visual Arts 
 
Lesson: U ​ pcycling (Creating new items using old items) 
 
Strand:​ B.PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENTS: CANADA’S INTERACTIONS WITH THE 
GLOBAL COMMUNITY, D. Visual Arts 
 
Overall Expectation:​ B2. Inquiry: Responses to Global Issues, D1. Creating and 
Presenting: apply the creative process 
 
Specific Expectation: ​use the social studies inquiry process to investigate some global 
issues of political, social, economic, and/or environmental importance, their impact on 
the global community, and responses to the issues. D1.1 create two-dimensional, 
three-dimensional, and multimedia art works that explore feelings, ideas, and issues 
from a variety of points of view 
 
Students will learn how to create useful items out of items that are usually seen as 
trash. They will create a planter out of the bottom of a plastic bottle and decorate it. 
Then they will plant a seed to grow a plant. They will see that sometimes trash can be 
made into something useful. This will teach students to think twice and keep an open 
mind before they throw something away if they can somehow use it instead of bringing 
it into the environment and harming our home. 
 
Objectives:  
-​Students will learn how items can be reused instead of just discarded in the school. 
-Students will learn how to make a useful object out of materials 
-Students will learn that waste disrupts the environment and our planet 
-Students will think about how everyone can participate in a broader sense 
 
 
Decision-Making Model: 
 
See 
Does an item look like it should be thrown away or recycled? 
Do I throw away all items I use as trash? 
 

Do communities like this school recycle or reuse anything? 

Does all trash end up in the proper spot that is beneficial for the environment? (or does 
it end up in the ocean/other habitats?) 
 
Judge  
 
Option 1  
If you don’t recycle items  
This item could end up somewhere that it shouldn’t be 
Somewhere that is not good for the environment. 
If I see an item like this in my house should I throw it out even if there is a use for it. 
 
Option 2 
If you do 
Recyclables end up making new objects rather than disrupting the environment 
You learn that you can make cool new things out of used things like pop bottles and 
pop cans. 
 
Act  
 
Choice is Option 2 
 
Evaluate 
 
Did we reduce any amount of waste? 
Yes 
 
Did we learn how to reuse materials to make something useful? 
Yes 
 
Can we continue to find more ways to reuse old objects to make useful ones? 
Yes 
 
Did we help the environment? 
Yes 
 
 
 
Child Development Analysis 
 

Intellectual/Cognitive  
• Early adolescents have an increased ability to learn and apply skills 
• Youth in this age range learn to extend their way of thinking beyond their personal 
experiences and knowledge and start to view the world outside of an absolute 
black-white/right-wrong perspective.  
 
Emotional/Social  
• Developing and testing values and beliefs that will guide present and future behaviors  
 
 
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church 
 
255. T ​ he Old Testament presents God as the omnipotent Creator (​ cf. ​Gen​ 2:2; ​Job 
38-41;​ Ps 1 ​ 04; P​ s​ 147)​ who fashions man in his image and invites him to work the soil 
(cf. ​Gen​ 2:5-6), a ​ nd cultivate and care for the garden of Eden in which he has placed 
him​ (cf.​ Gen​ 2:15). To the first human couple God entrusts the task of subduing the 
earth and exercising dominion over every living creature (cf. ​Gen​ 1:28). The dominion 
exercised by man over other living creatures, however, is not to be despotic or reckless; 
on the contrary he is to “cultivate and care for” (​Gen​ 2:15) the goods created by God. 
These goods were not created by man, but have been received by him as a precious 
gift that the Creator has placed under his responsibility. Cultivating the earth means not 
abandoning it to itself; exercising dominion over it means taking care of it, as a wise 
king cares for his people and a shepherd his sheep. 
 
 
174. T ​ he principle of the universal destination of goods is an invitation to develop an 
economic vision inspired by moral values that permit people not to lose sight of the 
origin or purpose of these goods, so as to bring about a world of fairness and solidarity​, 
in which the creation of wealth can take on a positive function. Wealth, in effect, 
presents this possibility in the many different forms in which it can find expression as 
the result of a process of production that works with the available technological and 
economic resources, both natural and derived. This result is guided by resourcefulness, 
planning and labour, and used as a means for promoting the well-being of all men and 
all peoples and for preventing their exclusion and exploitation 
 
 
 
171. A ​ mong the numerous implications of the common good, immediate significance is 
taken on by the principle of the universal destination of goods​: “God destined the earth 
 

and all it contains for all men and all peoples so that all created things would be shared 
fairly by all mankind under the guidance of justice tempered by charity”[360]. This 
principle is based on the fact that “the original source of all that is good is the very act 
of God, who created both the earth and man, and who gave the earth to man so that he 
might have dominion over it by his work and enjoy its fruits (​Gen​ 1:28-29). God gave 
the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without 
excluding or favouring anyone. 
 
 
Virtues 
 
Through this activity, students will develop the virtues of Compassion, ​Prudence, 
Temperance, Fortitude 
 
 
 
 
Prayer 
 
God is the foundation for everything 
This God undertakes, God gives. 

Such that nothing that is necessary for life is lacking. 

Now humankind needs a body that at all times honors and praises God. 

This body is supported in every way through the earth. 

Thus the earth glorifies the power of God. 

--Hildegard of Bingen 

 
Sources: ​http://ecocyclesolutionshub.org/about-zero-waste/social-justice/