Comparing household waste in different countries

Environmental issues affect people all over the world and the search for sustainable solutions is a great focal point around which pupils from different countries can work together.

The aim of this project was to enable pupils in Anglesey to learn with and from children from Denmark and Nicaragua, rather than just learning about them. The project was based around three themes, 'Ourselves', 'Our Environments' and 'Our Homes'.

The pupils investigated a range of issues and shared their findings. They compared the household waste that was produced in each of the three communities and found out what happened to it. They investigated the types of transport used and the traffic problems that occurred. They looked at local woodlands and forests and found out about the destruction of forests across the world. In each case they suggested and compared possible solutions for the problems and evaluated them to see how sustainable they were. They realised that these concerns can be tackled in different ways and that situations are constantly changing.

The pupils from Anglesey and Denmark realised that children and adults in less economically developed countries share many of the same concerns as they and their communities do, whilst pupils in Nicaragua learnt that communities in more economically developed countries also had problems and concerns and were searching for sustainable solutions. The project contributed to pupils' work in science, geography and language.

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This case study is taken from: Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship, ACCAC et al, 2002.