8+Science+3+Hallie's+MSW+Project

​ **Reusable and Compostable Lunch Containers VS. Non-Compostable Lunch Containers** [| http://ccds.ed.voicethread.com/share/956054/] project: amount of lunch bags that are reusable study the lunches that people bring from home - looking at the type of bag the students bring and items in them

​**I** Introduction: I have found that some students bring plastic, disposable, non-compostable lunch containers rather than reusable or compostable containers. I am studying whether educating the seventh and eighth grade students on waste will change their habits from bringing plastic, non-recyclable bags to paper bags or reuseable lunch boxes. My hypothesis is as follows: If I have the students in seventh and eighth understand the education we give them about using paper, compostable lunch bags or reusable lunch boxes then they will reduce the amount of waste produced.

**II** Materials: 1. two sheets of paper 2. pencil 3. 7th and 8th grade students 4. computer for printing sign

Safety concerns 1. poking yourself with a pencil 2. getting a paper cut 3. making students mad

**III** Procedure: 1. go to the cafeteria 2. look at how many people bring lunch to school 3. count how many students bring reusable lunch boxes vs disposable lunch containers 4. count how many bring paper lunch bags vs plastic lunch bags 5. find a cheaper recyclable or compostable alternative to what we already use such as paper 6. educate the students about using this alternative to the non-recyclable option 7. count the number of students using the non-compostable bags after education 8. see if number of students using compostable bags has increased 9. days of data collection are for before education: 2-12-10, 2-17-10, 2-18-10, and after education: 2-25-10, 2-26-10, 3-1-10 independent variable: education dependent variable: amount of waste produced by lunch containers

​ **VI** Data of compostable bags (paper) || number of non- compostable bags (plastic) || number who bring lunch (total) || number who bring reusable || number who bring disposable || days of data || 7th || 8 8 11 || 1 0 3 || 22 30 24 || 13 22 10 || 9 8 14 || 2-12 2-17 2-18 || 7th || 8 6 X || 3 1 X || 28 20 X || 17 13 X || 11 7 X || 2-25 2-26 3-1 || 8th || 3 5 2 || 3 1 3 || 12 12 16 || 6 6 11 || 6 6 5 || 2-12 2-17 2-18 || 8th || 2 2 X || 4 2 X || 13 11 X || 7 7 X || 6 4 X || 2-25 2-26 3-1 || Averages of all data
 * || number
 * before education
 * after education
 * before education
 * after education
 * || total || reusable || disposable || paper || plastic ||
 * before || 18.87 || 10.87 || 8 || 5.75 || 2.25 ||
 * after || 19 || 11.25 || 7 || 4.5 || 2.5 ||

​**V** Analysis: The trend is that the the data didn't really change. where it did change it was very subtle.

**VI** Conclusion:

My hypothesis was not supported because the students did not change their ways to reduce waste. However it was supported in the way that reusable lunch boxes went up and disposable went down. The experiment had many errors such as the following: we did not have very bright posters compared to other groups' and those caught the attention of the students. This was a human error because it was a human's fault, and it wasnt writen out in the experiment procedure. We faced problems with students coming in later or earlier and leaving before we count the number of lunch containers. A solution for the poster problem was to collect data at a different time than other groups and use bright neon posters also. The solution for the problem of students coming and leaving is to have all of the students in one grade come in at the same time but that would be very difficult because some students have excuses for being late.