What A Waste! A Secondary Environmental Science Unit On Waste Reduction And Management

This writing serves as an introductory unit to waste management and reduction to be used in a high school urban environmental education classroom. The research question for this capstone was, does teaching environmental science through waste reduction and management in an urban classroom affect student engagement and connection? The research outlined in this paper explores and examines the concept of an urban classroom environment, the importance of teaching environmental science, and tools and materials to incorporate a unit on waste into an environmental science course. The paper goes on to explain the importance of educating students about the waste crisis and explores ways to increase engagement when it comes to waste reduction in their communities. This topic was chosen due to its extreme relatability to students who reside in a metropolitan or urban area. It contains immediately applicable content that would serve to enrich a current curriculum or aid in developing a new one