Lesson: It’s in the Trash

 

Days: 1

 

 

Objectives:

1.02 Estimate and compute with rational numbers

1.12 Analyze problems to determine if there is sufficient or extraneous data, select appropriate strategies, and use an organized approach to solve using calculators when appropriate.

 

 

Materials:

ü      Filled wastebaskets or small garbage bags from several places in the school, home, or elsewhere, selected to represent rooms of different function;

ü       Disposable gloves

ü      Plastic tarps are useful when spreading out the garbage. (Undesirable and unsanitary items, such as used tissues or rotting food remains, should not be included in the trash to be analyzed.)

ü      "It's in the Garbage" activity sheet for each group

ü      “Garbage Chart" activity sheet for each group (optional).

 

 

Setting the Stage:

The famous anthropologist Franz Boas reportedly said, "Man never lies to his garbage heap." What do you think your family's garbage could tell about you? (Examples: family size, income, preferred foods, and activities).

 

Procedure:

1. Review the concepts of culture, context, observation, inference, classification, chronology, and scientific inquiry. Students will be applying these concepts to their study of garbage.

 

2. Explain to students that they are going to be archaeologists, analyzing garbage (middens) to learn about the people who threw

it away. Demonstrate some of the information that can be learned from garbage by examining a small amount of trash from your classroom trash can:

 

ü      What culture is this garbage from?

ü       Could the garbage be mistaken for that of another culture?

ü      Is the garbage in your classroom trash the same or different from classroom garbage in China? Portugal?

ü      Your town 100 years ago?

ü      Are basic human needs represented in the trash?

ü      What can you infer about the people who threw these things away and the origin of the garbage based on your observations?

ü      Is cafeteria trash the same as that from the wood shop? the library?

ü      How is a single person's garbage different from that of a family with many children?

ü      Is a vegetarian's trash different from a meat-eater's?

ü      Arrange the trash in chronological order. On the bottom is the oldest trash, on the top is the most recent garbage. If you find dated items through the trash, such as newspapers or postmarked envelopes or product dates, you can establish a precise date for the trash.

ü      Sort the trash into piles based upon some type of similarity. This is a classification, perhaps including categories like paper, food containers, and other office supplies. The trash is obviously from a classroom because you have preserved its context, the relationship artifacts have to each other and the situation in which they occur. If you went to your town's landfill, you might find some of the artifacts from your classroom trash. However, you could not interpret it as coming from your classroom because it has been all mixed up with trash from many other places. Its context has been lost.

ü      Construct a scientific inquiry. An example is: "Was the trash made by very young children?" The hypothesis could be: "If there are few papers with cursive writing in the trash, then the trash came from young children." Classify the trash into two categories: papers with and papers without cursive writing. Accept or reject your hypothesis.

 

3. Divide the class into groups of 4 to 6 students and give each group a bag of trash (and disposable gloves). The group analyzes its trash using the activity sheet "It's in the Garbage" (and optionally the "Garbage Chart").

 

4. Each group must weigh the trash in each category. Find the sum to get a total weight and find the percent of each category that is in the trash.

 

5. Students enter the categories and weights into the TI-73 calculators and create a pie chart.

 

4. Students visit each other's "middens," and a spokesperson from each group presents a summary of its findings along with the pie chart that shows how the trash was divided.

 

Evaluation:

Collect the students' activity sheets and reports.

 

Closure:

ü      Discuss the volume of the trash of each category.  Did the weight reflect the volume of the trash? Discuss ecological ramifications on the amount of trash used.

ü      What clues helped your group determine where your trash came from?

ü      How does this activity relate to viewing real artifacts?

ü      Use Garbage Concept worksheet for more info.

 

 

Background Information: It’s in the Trash

 

 

The unusable or unwanted remnants of everyday life end up in the garbage. By studying what people have thrown away, Archaeologists can learn a great deal about a culture. This is true not only of prehistoric peoples who left no written record about their lives, but also of people today. Archaeologist Bill Rathje studies the garbage of Americans. He has learned many things about the relationships of human behavior and trash disposal, information useful in studying people of the past and the present. Rathje has found that people will often tell an interviewer what they believe is appropriate behavior, but their garbage tells another story. For instance, people frequently say they eat lots of fruits and vegetables, yet their garbage shows they do not.

Another example is that people say they recycle more than they actually do (Rathje 1984, p. 27).

 

Just as we do not throw our trash in any old place, neither did prehistoric people. Archaeologists call their garbage heaps middens, and middens are a rich source of archaeological information about ancient people's lifeways. Layers of trash also tell a story over time. Archaeologists excavate middens slowly and carefully, recording the location of artifacts and samples they recover. They analyze the tiny fragments of prehistoric meals (bone slivers, seed hulls, plant parts) and charcoal from cooking fires. The animals and plants from which the bits of evidence came can be identified, and archaeologists can learn very precise

information about the economy of past people.

 

If a midden is disturbed and the layers mixed, chronology and context are lost; it then becomes impossible to interpret the lifeways of past people. Vandals looking for artifacts dig in middens, and they destroy irreplaceable information about the past. They tear pages from the history book of time. Everyone can help by not digging archaeological sites or collecting artifacts and by refusing to buy artifacts from people who do.