Lesson overview

In this lesson students discover some of the incredible uses for plastic i.e. medical science and space exploration and reflect on why single-use plastics have become unpopular. Students examine data from a sample of litter collected on Henderson Island. They go on to consider where the plastic litter could have come from and create a bar graph representing this data.

Learning outcomes

• Examine data from Henderson Island
• Create a bar graph demonstrating the amount of plastic litter collected
• Explore important uses of plastic
• Create a poster demonstrating the pros and cons of plastics
• Reflect on societies needs / wants related to plastics

Lesson steps

1. Beach litter survey (10 mins)
   Students examine the data from the beach survey at Henderson Island in the Pacific and discuss how various items could have arrived there.
2. Data analysis (10 mins)
   Using this data students create a bar graph demonstrating what percentage of the pollution is plastic and draw conclusions about its origin.
3. Fantastic plastic! (10 mins)
   Students look at Gallery: Fantastic plastic to discover some of the fascinating ways plastic is used to improve our health, life and scientific endeavours.
4. Pros and cons (15 mins)
   Students choose two uses of plastic that they feel represent the pros and cons of plastics and create a poster illustrating these uses and their impacts.
5. Who needs plastic? (15 mins)
   Students write an entry in their Innovation Diary, summarising how they feel about the different uses for plastics, which are important and which are unnecessary.

England

Science Key Stage 2

Properties and changes of materials

• Compare and group together everyday materials on the basis of their properties, including their hardness, solubility, transparency, conductivity (electrical and thermal), and response to magnets
• Give reasons, based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, for the particular uses of everyday materials, including metals, wood and plastic

Working Scientifically

• Record data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels, classification keys, tables, scatter graphs, bar and line graphs
  
• Report and present findings from enquiries, including conclusions, causal relationships and explanations of and a degree of trust in results, in oral and written forms such as displays and other presentations
  

Geography Key Stage 2

Human and physical geography

• Describe and understand key aspects of physical geography, including: climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the water cycle
• Human geography, including: types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water

Geographical skills and fieldwork

• Use maps, atlases, globes and digital/computer mapping to locate countries and describe features studied
  

Mathematics Key Stage 2

Statistics

• Interpret and present discrete and continuous data using appropriate graphical methods, including bar charts and time graphs