y members can shop as well.
This connection to an audience beyond teachers and parents helps students see that their efforts are valuable (especially since they are making money) and will incentivize them to develop quality products.
You will want to advertise the upcycled products students have created. While you can display them around school and share photos with parents, this is also a great opportunity to have students develop ads to persuade others to buy their products. Students may choose to highlight how their products promote conservation, or they may prefer to persuade others to purchase the upcycled creations for their usefulness or beauty.
You might also consider donating student-created items to a local low-income preschool, senior home, or non-profit second-hand store.
Your first discussions about recycling and upcycling will help you gauge students’ understanding of the impact of waste on the environment.
Be sure to include creativity in your evaluation. Are students demonstrating habits of creativity, such as being inquisitive, persistent, imaginative, collaborative, and disciplined?
Do they take risks both creatively and with their team? Do they prefer to follow someone else’s directions? Did they impart their own influences on the items produced? How much effort and creativity did they contribute to create something new/beautiful/valuable?
You can use Wixie to include a reflective component in this process. Ask students to create a Wixie project that includes a definition of upcycling, describes how upcycling is beneficial, showcases their upcycled design and lists the materials that were salvaged, includes an advertisement for their product, and shares what they learned along the way.
Miranda Paul. One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Woman of the Gambia ISBN: 1467716081
Pam Scheunemann. Trash to Treasure: A Kid’s Guide to Crafts ISBN: 193806318X
Garth Johnson. 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse: Remake, Restyle, Recycle, Renew ISBN: 1592535402
Conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work.
Anchor Standard #1. Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Anchor Standard #2. Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Anchor Standard #3. Refine and complete artistic work.
3-5-ETS1-2. Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
Text Type and Purpose
3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
a. Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.
Speaking and Listening
Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
4. Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
6. Creative Communicator
Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals. Students:
a. choose the appropriate platforms and tools for meeting the desired objectives of their creation or communication.
b. create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
c. communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.
d. publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.
Ideas for engaging elementary students in science as they explore the curriculum through creative projects.
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