Waste reduction education kits checkout form

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Resources to help groups learn about resource conservation and the connection between people, consumer products and nature.

Pick up kits in person at Metro Regional Center concierge desk at 600 NE Grand Ave., Portland.

Name *

Phone *

Email address *

Name of school or organization *

E.g., Master Recycler, Clear Creek Middle School, Beaverton Library

Grade level (if applicable)

Expected number of participants to use the kit

Ordering details

Please select which kit you wish to check out below. You may check out only one kit at a time.

Allow one full day to process your order. If your order is not picked up within three business days of the selected date, the order will be canceled and the kit will be returned to stock.

Under the selection box indicate the date you wish to pick up the kit at Metro. You may select a one- or two-week window you would like to keep the kit. The return date is within three days of your 7-day or 14-day window (unless noted otherwise).

Example:

Desired pickup date: Sep 16, 2019
Checkout period: 14 days
Return date: Sep 30, 2019 to Oct 3, 2019

Available classroom education kits

These education kits are designed to be used by classrooms, after-school groups or summer camps, and include lesson plans and materials to teach youth more about resource conservation and recycling.

Recycle or Not classroom kit

Recommended for grades K-12. This hands-on activity allows students to identify items that can be recyclable at a home or school. The students can sort and categorize common home and school items as they learn the reasons why some items cannot be recycled in our region. The lesson plan also includes links to youth-friendly videos of how a material recovery facility sorts our mixed recycling and how paper, glass, metal and plastics are recycled into new items.

Composting with Worms

Recommended for grades K-5. This kit offers a hands-on look at a worm compost bin habitat. Students will learn about how the composting cycle works to reduce garbage in our homes and schools and how the resulting “super soil” can help a garden. The activity sharpens observation skills and engages students in the steps of the scientific method as they learn how to tell the head from the tail of a red wiggler worm.

Resource Connections

Recommended for grades 1-3. Students will learn through photos, hands-on materials, and a memory game which natural resources are used to create everyday items they can find in their classrooms and their homes. They will understand why it is important to reduce our resource consumption by reducing, reusing, and recycling, and practice these concepts in a relay game.

InPESTigations and Bugged by Pesticides

Recommended for grades 4-5. This two-part kits includes two activities that promotes critical thinking and challenges students to decide for themselves what makes something a pest in their school or home environment. The second activity is an out-of-your-seat classroom game that demonstrates how pesticides affect animals in a food chain. Students will learn about the potential effects of wildlife and safer alternative ways to deal with pests.

Enough Already!

Recommended for grades 5-7. This activity is designed to be conducted as three sessions over three weeks and facilitates an in-depth examination of how we consume natural resources. Participants will measure and graph their ecological footprint and select a specific behavior change they can make to conserve resources. The kit also includes interactive games and activities for investigating how to prevent food waste at home as well as understanding the upstream impact of buying new stuff.

Climate Change

Recommended for grades 6-12. This two-part lesson guides participants through a new story of climate change using a lens of hope, equity, community resilience, and increased quality of life. After discussing the basics of climate science with graphs and personal stories, participants will use an interactive concept map and short video series to understand the link between consumer culture and climate disruption. They will then investigate a range of individual and collective actions to combat climate change through a ranking activity with Drawdown solutions and a climate justice mixer. The lesson uses a variety of teaching tools including short videos, visual mapping, ranking activities, pair-share, and an interactive mixer.

Plan, Shop, Chop

Recommended for grades 7-12. In this interactive simulation, students plan and shop for a meal of their choosing and then calculate and discuss the impact when an average of 40% of food is wasted in the United States. Topics include greenhouse gas emissions, use of landfill space, and loss of natural resources, human labor, and money, as well as generating solutions to prevent food waste at home. The lesson includes optional extensions to investigate the food waste hierarchy and examine the supply chain of a common food item, the banana.

Which kit would you like to request? Please select only one.

Classroom kit request

Classroom kit pickup date

Year

Month

Day

Classroom kit checkout period

7 days14 days21 days

21-day checkout period is only for the kit Enough Already!

Additional comments or questions

You will be notified by email within 24 hours (Monday to Friday) if the kit you have chosen is available for checkout. If the kit is not available on your desired date, we will give you alternative dates to choose from.

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