Activities

Activity: Audit your plastic habit and find out where your waste goes.

Activity development:

As a group, with friends or your class at school, use the "Clean Seas Guide" (below) to audit your plastic habits and take action to reduce your plastic usage. Can you, both individually and collectively, manage a 50 percent reduction of plastic use? This will mean reducing, reusing or replacing your plastic items. Create a blog or Instagram campaign to highlight your progress and share it with the wider community • Start auditing your plastic and continue to do so for a month • Get 5 additional people to audit their plastic for a month • Manage to reduce your plastic usage by 50 percent after a month

Clean Seas Guide

Activity: Litter...Why does it matter?

Summary:

This activity helps the participants to understand:

• the impact of littering

• the Correlation of plastic pollution with littering

Activity development:

Littering is one of the biggest environmental as well as a social challenge faced today. It is important for young pteople to know about the impacts of littering as plastic is present in every product that is bought. This activity will help young people understand how litter contributes to the problem of plastic pollution. The participants need to be shown a short film about littering and the impact of plastic pollution mainly on wildlife and marine organisms. They should also be briefed about how littering contributes to plastic pollution.

Steps:

1. The facilitator should facilitate a discussion with young people about the problems associated with littering and how it leads to plastic pollution.
2. The participants then should be asked to monitor littering behavior of people. They could choose to monitor littering on roads, in commercial places, in open places and parks or in schools.
3. The participants select a suitable spot which they think might have a littering problem.
4. The facilitator should guide the participants to “observe people’s behavior of littering” at that spot.

Some indicators for observation could include: • Are there waste bins in this spot? • Whether people throw waste in the waste bins? • The type of material littered most frequently? • Was the littered material consumed by any animal?

Following this,participants should track how littering leads to a set of problems which ultimately contribute to polluting the land, water and atmosphere. Based on their observations and background research, the participants should write their views in the form of an essay depicting the correlation between littering and plastic pollution. The participants will be able to co-relate how littering behavior contributes to the problem of plastic pollution. Discuss the impacts of littering

Activity: Litter Blitz

Summary:

This activity helps the participants to identify the causes of trigger littering and perspective of people towards litter and how it affects them.

Activity development:

Litter is an environmental as well as a social challenge. It is important to know the reason behind this behavior. This activity will give an idea about littering behavior to the participants. This questionnaire can help young people know about certain challenges associated with the habit of littering.

Steps:

1. The facilitator should divide the young people into groups so that each group would have 4-5 members.

2. The facilitator should ask the groups to select a spot and conduct a local survey. The young people can also do it individually at public spots near their respective homes.

3. Each group will survey 2-3 spots and interview people of different age groups. They may interview around 10 people at each spot.

4. The participants should compile their individual results with their group and make a data sheet.

5. The groups should then compare their data with the other groups

6. Conclusion: The data that is generated as a result will help young people understand how peoples’ attitude differs when it comes to littering. The participants will also learn some triggering factors due to which people litter.

7. Evaluation: Discuss the triggering factors due to which people litter

Litter Survey

Activity: Regulating the use of plastics

Summary:

This activity helps young people understand how laws are made in a parliamentary process and how different points of view need to be solicited and incorporated before it is approved in the legislature.

Activity development:

Laws play an important role in regulating the use and disposal of plastics. For instance, India has regulations regarding the use of plastic bags below 50 microns. This activity is designed to create a discussion in class about developing a set of rules for the school that will help reduce the use of plastics and its appropriate disposal.

Before you begin

• The facilitator can start by explaining the importance of legislation and current rules and regulations for plastic waste disposal. young people can then be asked to draft their own laws regarding the use and disposal of plastics.

• Choose a number of young people within your team, to lead the discussion. Their task will be to prepare a draft set of rules and legislation for the use and disposal of plastics in the school/scout headquarter/sports club.

• Meanwhile, the rest of the young people can select their representative to play the role of a speaker who will conduct the proceedings.

• The speaker should then invite discussion on the draft rules. All young people must be encouraged to argue and suggest modifications to the draft.

• The group that has drafted the legislation can also present their suggestions.

• Finally, the class can vote on the corrected draft.

• In case of no agreement, item wise votes can be taken to decide which of the suggestions should form a part of the school/scout headquarter/sports club rules.

• The approved draft as the recommended set of rules which govern the use and disposal of plastics for the school/scout headquarter/ sports club can then be handed over to the principal.

• Conclusion: The young people will derive a clear understanding of the parliamentary process of lawmaking.

• Evaluation: It can focus on the quality of the discussion:

• Whether the different points of views are being articulated and received and how?

• How these views are being integrated towards a consensus?

The following questions such can be used for discussion:

1. Is it possible to get unanimity on the plastic policy?

2. Is there any part of the suggested rules that might affect some participants unfairly? If yes, how can the rules be modified to avoid doing so?

This activity will also help the young people to comprehend the need for and impact of laws and regulations on the plastic use and disposal.

Activity: Making a poster on marine pollution

Summary:

This activity helps the participants to communicate awareness through a creative exercise about plastic pollution in the oceans.

Activity development:

While plastic pollution affects all life on the planet, the situation in the ocean is particularly bad. This is because the ocean is the final sink for all the plastics that flow into the rivers and eventually into the sea. If access to the internet is available, there is considerable information available online about marine pollution along with graphic images of the damage it is doing to our oceans and marine life. This activity aims to get young people to make a poster about marine pollution.

Two options are given.

• If your place is near the coast, or any water body like a river or lake, a field trip is also suggested.

• The activity can otherwise be done through an internet search, or consulting reference books, articles or materials which can then be discussed.

Before you begin:

The facilitator can introduce the issue of marine pollution and ask young people how and why it happens, whether they know the extent of it and the possible harm it causes. The facilitator can then instruct them about the activity and get them started on developing a poster that will create awareness on this issue.

• If the internet is available, the facilitator should ask the participants to search for images and short films or alternatively go to the library to review books and magazines for ideas.

• The facilitator can then get the young people to form small groups in which they can discuss the issue they want to take to design and create their poster.

• Conclusion: Display the posters at young people den/ scout headquarter and get other participants to evaluate how effective the posters were in communicating their message

• Evaluation: The content of the poster and design will help in understanding the key issues identified by the young people

Use the #CleanSeas hashtag to share your signs with us on scouts.org

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Community service project

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