Check your snack

Pupils will

• become aware of some of the effects of consumption decisions.
• think about alternatives to plastic.
• understand that plastic is difficult to avoid completely, but there are many ways to handle it more responsibly.
• set goals to produce less plastic waste and dispose of it appropriately.

1-2 hours

Camera (or mobile phone), paper (A4 and A1 for collage)

School Snack Packaging - Photo documentation activity for pre-school and primary school.

1. Photo documentation of snacks brought along from home.

Each pupil artfully places their snack on an A4 sheet of paper.

Take photos of the pupils’ snacks.

Create an (anonymised) collage of the photos.

2. Find plastic waste in the photos.

The group discusses why some snacks are packaged in plastic.

Why is small packaging, particularly for schoolchildren, used for items like sausages, cheese, sweets, and bread rolls?

Are there unpackaged alternatives?

3. Consolidation of the learnt.

Discussion: What is the problem with plastic waste? How can we reduce our plastic snack waste at school?

Plan: Let’s reduce snack-related plastic waste in our class!

Evaluation: Repeat the "Check your box" activity. Could we reduce our plastic waste? What was easy? What was difficult?

4. Present the collage to parents.

Show the collage and the results of the project to parents (online or at a parents' evening). As a result, parents may become active in finding packaging alternatives or consciously avoiding packaging.

Additional activities:

• Prepare a zero-waste school breakfast.
• Collect your class’s plastic waste for a week—what could be avoided?
• Plastic packaging experiment – see resource
• Store check: Go shopping for school snacks—what is packaged, and what can be bought unpackaged?
• Plastic-free snacks challenge: Try a week (or a month) without plastic packaging.

Nature: Environmental protection and sustainability, consumer education

Language: Listening with understanding, speaking to others, holding conversations, developing inner images

Maths: Concepts of size, measuring activities, presenting data in a structured way

Art: Designing photographs, creating collage, presenting