Earlier this month, Pratt Industries in partnership with JASON Learning and ISRI, presented a free Recycling Activities Collection training workshop to teachers in Staten Island. The result is a private-public partnership that achieves multiple goals with one program; increased recycling, reduced litter, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) learning in K-12 schools.
The recycling curriculum, which includes hands-on activities, and interactive web-based experiences, all focused on the importance of recycling and the scrap industry, was originally piloted in 2015 when Pratt Industries took the initiative to coordinate a meeting between the office of the Borough President, ISRI, JASON Learning, New York City Department of Education, and New York City Department of Sanitation to start the conversation.
Now in its third year, more than 50 teachers attended the training on June 8th to help not only spread the recycling message to youth, but also to inspire America’s students to think about careers in the scrap and recycling business, and give them the scientific and technical background that such jobs require.
“This partnership with ISRI and its 1,300 members truly brings science home to these inquisitive students as they see and understand the complexity of everyday items and learn how they can become renewed resources for our world,” says Eleanor Smalley, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of JASON Learning, a nonprofit education organization founded by world-renowned oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard.
The full recycling curriculum is available online free to teachers and others interested in recycling education.