Activities

Things to do
There's more to Recycle City than just sightseeing! Try some of these activities.

Information for teachers
Would you like to use Recycle City in your classroom? We would like to help!

Things to do in Recycle City

Here are some activities and games that you can enjoy using the Recycle City website. Scattered throughout Recycle City, you'll find all the answers and information you need to play.

• Imagine you manage your own supermarket. What are some things you can do to reduce the amount of waste caused by the products you sell? Then, visit Maria's Market in Recycle City and see if she has any other ideas you can use.

• Name three ways that each of these items can be reused, instead of throwing them away. (You can use the whole thing or only part of it.)
• - Cardboard box
• Plastic milk carton
• Glass jar
• Wooden board
• Plastic bag
• Newspaper
  
  Can you find other ways these items are put to use in Recycle City?
  
  
• Find the place in Recycle City where you can get information on what to do with leftover cleaning products. Is there a place to take those kinds of items in your town? Where is it?
  
  
• Visit some houses in Recycle City and look for examples of household hazardous waste. How many are there? What are some safer, natural alternatives that could take the place of some of these things?
  
  
• Visit any Recycle City location you like. Before you go inside, try to figure out what you would do to reduce waste and energy use there. Then, click on the site. Did you miss anything? Did we?
  
  
• Cruise around Recycle City and find all the tips you can use to reduce pollution and waste that come from cars.
  
  
• Gas stations aren't just places to fill up the tank. Can you find six things that Shaq at the Recycle City gas station does to help the environment?
  
  
• Can you find out which recyclable item makes up the largest percentage of our trash?
  
  
• Identify three recycling activities that Recycle City students use to help raise money for class projects.
  
  
• Mayor Turner has been elected to state government, and you are selected to replace her as the new mayor of Recycle City. What kinds of things can you do to help citizens reduce, reuse, and recycle?
  
  
• Find at least seven different ways to reduce or reuse paper.
  
  
• Find at least three places in Recycle City where books are resold or reused.
  
  
• Harlin Hazzard of the Recycle City Hazardous Waste Center wants to hire you as his assistant manager. Before you can accept, you must name the four characteristics that make hazardous waste hazardous.
  
  
• Before he gives you a higher salary, Harlin wants to know what can be done to reduce the amount of hazardous waste going into the hazardous waste landfill. Can you tell him?
  
  
• Make a list of things around your house that you could donate to a charity or a community warehouse instead of throwing them out.
  
  
• What are some ways you or your family could cut down on the amount of junk mail you receive at home?
  
  
• How many places in Recycle City can you find used tires. Look carefully.

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.

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

Scavenger hunts:

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:

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.recyclecity@epa.gov .

The Clean Up Dumptown game

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.

Sample goals:

• 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.recyclecity@epa.gov, and we will add them to the list!

Other recycling resources

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