Information for Teachers

Recycle City was designed with the classroom in mind. All of the games and locations have been designed to make it easy for a teacher to set different goals that can match up with lessons being taught in class. You can also check out "Things To Do In Recycle City" for some more ideas. You can find additional education resources at Places to Visit Outside of Recycle City and EPA's Environmental Education site.

ActivitiesHere are some ideas on how you can use Recycle City in your classroom:

Scavenger Hunts | Recycle City Challenge & Dumptown Games | Sample Goals | Recycling Sign Maker Activity

Zero Waste Scavenger Hunt

Enjoy Recycle City's 25th Anniversary Scavenger Hunt!

Split up the class into several teams and let them go through the site, looking for the items on the list. This will encourage them to browse around the site looking for items and will spark team discussions on where to find the items.

Each team works together to find all the items in a list before the other teams do. Find:

  • The place where Recycle City established the new Zero Waste goal
  • A store with reusable containers and bags and bulk food
  • The school compost bin
  • A place where they use 100% recycled paper (This is a hard one to find!)
  • An electric bus

Afterwards, have a discussion with the whole class. Encourage students to share their favorite ideas for reducing waste, what they found, and anything that they went looking for and didn't find -- this can lead to interesting discussions.

You can find additional education resources at Places to Visit Outside of Recycle City and EPA's Environmental Education site.

Another Scavenger Hunt

You can organize students into teams for scavenger hunts through Recycle City. This works especially well if there are fewer computers than there are students. Each team works together to find all the items in a list before the other teams do. Before beginning the assignment, create a list of items that need to be found, for example:

Decorative

Find:

  • Something made from recycled tires
  • A way to use vinegar
  • A use for old bricks
  • Something made from old milk containers
  • An electric car
  • How coffee grounds can be reused

Your list of course, can be customized to emphasize reuse, recycling, or any other topic that you are exploring in class.

Split up the class into several teams and let them go through the site, looking for the items on the list. This will provide them with some incentive to browse around the site looking for items, and will spark team discussions on where the items might be found.

Afterwards, have a discussion with the class as a whole. Encourage students not only to talk about what they did find, but also about anything that they went looking for and didn't find...this can lead to interesting discussions. After the discussion, encourage students to write to us with any suggestions they have at R9.info@epa.gov.

You can find additional education resources at Places to Visit Outside of Recycle City and EPA's Environmental Education site.

Top of Page

 

The Clean Up Dumptown Game

Decorative

Clean Up Dumptown is designed to be extremely flexible. In fact, there are no goals or winning conditions built into the game at all! This was done so that you can assign goals to underscore particular topics and integrate into classroom curriculum.

Goals can include reducing the amount of a particular kind of waste going into the landfill by a particular amount, or by as much as possible. You can add budget caps, or restrict the programs that can be used.

You can also set research goals - determining the impact of composting on the waste stream, for example.

You can find additional education resources at Places to Visit Outside of Recycle City and EPA's Environmental Education site.

Top of Page

Sample Goals

decorative
  • Reduce the amount of paper going into the landfill as much as possible, and spend as little money as possible.
  • Remove as much organic waste from the waste stream as you can.
  • Set an overall spending limit ($200,000, for example) and find out which combination of programs within your budget achieves the most waste reduction.
  • How much waste can be removed from the waste stream using programs that have no cost to the city?
  • What is the optimum combination of programs for the city? (This is a hard one, and it may take up to an hour to try all the programs and determine the cost/benefit of them all.)

This should give you some ideas. If you come up with any other exercises, please send email to R9.info@epa.gov, and we will add them to the list!

You can find additional education resources at Places to Visit Outside of Recycle City and EPA's Environmental Education site.

Top of Page

Recycling Sign Maker Activity

Have groups of students create recycling, compost and waste signs using the San Francisco Department of the Environment's Sign Maker Exiting EPA (disclaimer) which is available in multiple languages.

Ideas:

  • Make Zero Waste recycling and composting signs for Recycle City
  • Research what can be recycled and composted in our school (or at your home) and make the signs
  • Get approval to develop and put up new signs on campus recycling and composting bins
  • Present on what is included in your recycling program signs and how the program could be improved to reduce waste

You can always find additional education resources at EPA's Environmental Education site.

Top of Page

Home | Main Map | Play the Games! | Activities | Help | Print and Downloadable Versions


EPA Home | Privacy and Security Notice | Accessibility Statement | Contact Us

Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr Instagram