Unit Plan

Pbs: The Lowdown: The Math of Trash: Percents and Proportions

Curated by ACT

Discover how percents and proportions help explain issues like climate change, composting, and zero waste in this video from KQED. In the accompanying classroom activity, students estimate the percentage of various types of trash that they generate (e.g., paper, plastic) and calculate the pounds of each based on the United States daily average of 7 pounds per person. They display these figures in a pie chart and consider how the chart would change if they generated less trash. To get the most from this lesson, students should have some prior experience calculating percentages.

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Classroom Considerations
  • Knovation Readability Score: 5 (1 low difficulty, 5 high difficulty)
  • The intended use for this resource is Instructional