Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish

Dinosaurs and all that rubbish

Year level

Lower Primary to Middle Primary with extension activities for older students listed at end of lesson plan.

Lesson description

This lesson is centred around the picture book Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish by Michael Foreman, which tells the story of a man who destroys his environment through his efforts to reach a faraway star.

In this lesson students will become aware:

that pollution is a man-made problem
of the need to manage and protect our resources
that many living things rely on resources that may be threatened
that everyone needs to take responsibility in caring for our world and preserving our resources.

Curriculum links

Foundation

Living things have basic needs, including food and water (Science - ACSSU002)

Share observations and ideas (Science - ACSIS012)

Year 1

Living things live in different places where their needs are met (Science - ACSSU211)

Engage in conversations and discussions, using active listening behaviours, showing interest, and contributing ideas, information and questions (English - ACELY1656)

Year 2

Earth’s resources, including water, are used in a variety of ways (Science - ACSSU032)

Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, language and visual features and print and multimodal text structures (English - ACELY1670)

Materials

Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish (by Michael Foreman; Penguin Books Australia ISBN 9780140552607)

Procedure

Read Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish out aloud.

Discuss the book with students.

Questions might include:

Was the man right to make such a mess and then just leave it?
Did dinosaurs make rubbish?
Do other animals make rubbish? If they do what happens to it?
What rubbish do you and I make?
Is it ok to throw our rubbish on the ground? What happens to our rubbish if we leave it on the ground?
How do you feel when you go somewhere beautiful and there is rubbish everywhere?
Was the man right to say that everything belonged to him when he came back?
Who does it belong to?
What did the man learn from the dinosaurs?
Imagine a world full of rubbish and pollution. How would it look? How would it smell? How would it make you feel? How would it affect the animals?

Ask your class their ideas on the following.

What should we do with our rubbish? How can we reduce our waste?

Answers might include:

Put it in the bin.
Take it home with us.
Try not to produce rubbish: e.g. by buying things that have no or very little rubbish.
Discuss reducing and reusing our rubbish.
Recycle (briefly explain that some things such as paper, cardboard and plastic bottles can be put in our yellow-lidded recycling bin and be sent to the recycling factory to be turned into new paper, cardboard and plastic products).

Put up two large pictures of a beautiful beach, (or similar pristine environment such as a forest or lake). Have students paste bits of litter onto one picture and paste pictures of birds, animals and fish on to the other. Have students come up with a heading for each e.g. ‘Save our world’ or ‘Say NO to litter’.

Extension activities

Make dinosaurs out of a recyclable plastic bottle. Instructions available at

Work with students to rewrite story as a play and have students act it out.
Make a class list of things that we can do to help the environment and keep our world clean.
Have students rewrite the story from the man’s point of view.
Set up two fishbowls or aquariums. In one add lots of rubbish, in the other, add fish and plants. Place the aquariums side by side so that students can see the difference. Do not clean the aquarium with the rubbish.

Brisbane City Council

Rethink Your Rubbish Lesson Plan: Dinosaurs and all that rubbish