This lesson will be a review of motivation and procedures for doing the cleanup; compare findings; draw conclusions; share feelings; create a song/rap or a poster from the philanthropic endeavor at the beach to reflect on the unit.

The learner will:

• estimate and calculate the weight of collected debris.
• make conclusions about environmental degradation at the beach.
• write a journal entry describing the survey and clean-up.
• compose a song/rap or poster to reflect the philanthropic experience.

Anticipatory set:
Teacher will ask (as a whole group activity), "Why did you do philanthropy at the beach? Did we make a difference? How/why were we philanthropists at the beach? What did you find? How did the beach look before and after our cleanup? How did it make you feel?" (brief answers at this point)

 

• Have students sit in their groups and distribute the data sheets from the beach. Total the tallies if not done at the beach.
  
  
• Make observations about what kind of trash was found, what they found most often, what was the strangest item. (Be careful…could get interesting!) Give several students a chance to respond to these questions. Ask students to make conclusions about environmental degradation at the beach based on the materials collected (e.g., much of the trash is food-related and could be lessened if there were more trash receptacles available). Discuss the conclusions as a group.
  
  
• Estimate the weight of the team bag of debris that was gathered. Weigh the bags of garbage and get a class total in pounds as well as kilograms. Rank the three things found most often.
  
  
• Explain what made this class activity a philanthropic experience.
  
  
• Share feelings of this philanthropic project by reading the poetry and sharing artwork in a community circle. (These may be saved to publish in a booklet). Examples of these can be viewed at www.lakemichigan.org.
  
  
• Collect the data sheets to turn in to the Lake Michigan Federation for compilation in the national results. Debris may be recycled or tossed in the garbage.

Students will share their assessment piece with their families and have a parent respond in the student's writing journal.