Trash Monster Contest Spring 2024
ENTER TO WIN YOUR CLASS
SUSTAINABLE CLASSROOM PRODUCTS
OR A PIZZA PARTY!
CONQUER YOUR TRASH MONSTER CONTEST
Contra Costa Clean Water Program’s Conquer Your Trash Monster Contest is designed for Contra Costa students at a 4-5th grade level but teachers and students of all grades are welcome to enter!
Download fun learning activities, lessons, and posters for your students, then create a project to show us what you learned!
The contest provides educational Earth Month activities to help your students become more conscious about the trash they generate on a daily basis.
What kind of trash monsters are your students creating in their lunchboxes, during extra-curricular activities, and at home? Help them log their waste and learn how to dispose of waste properly– or help them learn how to reduce or eliminate their trash monsters altogether.
Let’s keep trash out of our streets and waterways!
Download the fact-sheets, guides, and logging diaries now and enter to win your class a prize today!
LEARN AND PLAY, NOW THRU MAY
Your contest guides include:
- A Teacher’s Guide
- A Collection Diary
- A Sorting Chart
Your lessons include:
- A Trash Reduction Best Practices Fact-Sheet
- An Infographic about How Trash Impacts Our Waterways
- A Map with How to Identify Your Watershed
- A Pledge Sheet
- A Sheet of Prompts for Constructing a Visual Depiction of Your Class’s Trash Monster
DOWNLOAD YOUR MATERIALS FOR THE TRASH MONSTER CONTEST
CONTEST OVERVIEW
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Prizes:
- There will be one prize awarded to one class for both group and individual entries, i.e. if an individual entry wins the contest, their whole class will get the prize (the winner will get something special extra). Teachers may choose between reusable utensils for students, reusable water bottles for students, a pizza party, or a bagel breakfast party.
How the Winner Will Be Chosen:
The winner will be announced after Earth Day 2024 in early May 2024. The winner is selected through a points system by a panel of judges from Contra Costa Clean Water Program.
Group or individual projects will be graded by the following criteria:
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Creativity or Inventiveness
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Originality and imagination
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How well the project illustrates how the trash monster was formed
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The class or individual’s findings about how to conquer
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Extra points will be given to those students/classes that have implemented changes and taken pledges following their findings from the contest.
Deadline: Submit online by April 30, 2024
REGISTER TO DOWNLOAD YOUR MATERIALS NOW
INSTRUCTIONS FOR ENTRY
1. Download the guides and lessons and choose a five day span well before April 30 to track the trash you generate and go over the lesson guides with your students.
2. Instruct your class to begin collecting or logging the trash they generate on a daily basis.Trash could be plastic forks, food wrapping, paper cups, and many other types of single-use plastics and other items your students daily dispose of in their daily lives at school.
3. Students should use the collection diary provided to log the trash that’s generated by them at lunchtimes, recess, or sports. Children are welcome to log their home generation separately as well.
Teachers, collect only what you’re comfortable with having in your classroom. You set the rules for what kind of trash comes in.
4. At the end of the 5th day, once students have logged and sorted all the items they’ve generated, they will begin to see the trash monster they’ve created! Single-use plastic, packaging, and trash that cannot be reused or recycled and that is destined for landfill is their monster.
5. Now is the time to share your monster and your findings with us for everyone to learn! Check out our art prompts for inspiration on how to do it. Tell us how you plan to conquer your monster going forward!
6. Teachers may decide to create a trash monster project with their entire class or break their students up into groups for this contest.
7. Teachers should submit their students’ art entries by posting them on their Facebook page, or our Facebook page, or by joining our Facebook group, and using the hashtags #contracostacleanwaterprogram #trashmonstercontest by the deadline, April 30 to be eligible to win.
START NOW BY DOWNLOADING YOUR LESSONS AND GUIDES
Make sure you follow us on Facebook and join our Facebook Group! Post your projects, findings, and experiences in the group or on your own pages to share your class’s progress and to inspire others to join the challenge and conquer their trash monsters! Tag us and use the hashtags:
#contracostacleanwaterprogram #trashmonstercontest
The winner will be announced after Earth Day 2024.
Entries will be judged on the spirit of their concepts and articulation of the trash monster, its formation, and its potential impact on their school, classroom, and community environment. Extra credit will be given for lessons learned and steps taken (with documentation) to implement solutions.
THE GOAL OF THIS FUN CONTEST IS:
To make students aware of the need to reduce or eliminate single-use plastics in their everyday lives and to self-elect into or influence school administrators to employ programs for recycling and composting where possible!
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Ask questions, chat with fellow teachers, let us know what you need or what you’re learning
INVITE A COLLEAGUE TO JOIN THE CONTEST
The more the merrier when tackling trash reduction!
RESOURCES FOR INSPIRATION AND SHARING