8+Science+1+Lizzie's+MSW+Project

Lizzie Mitchell February 17, 2010 8-1

__**Signage in Classrooms to Increase Recycling:**__

​ __Introduction:__

The Country Day community has been doing pretty well with recycling most of their waste, but we could definitely do a lot more into being more efficient with what we throw away. The purpose of this project is to reduce the amount of recycleable waste being thrown away. By trying to achieve this goal, we are putting signs above trash cans making students aware and persuading them to recycle. If you put signs telling people to recycle above trash cans in the hallways, then the amount of recycleables in the trash will decrease.

__Materials:__

1. GPS 2. Computer 3. Flyers 4. Trash cans 5. Tape

Safety Concerns and Guidelines:

1. Conduct yourself in a responsible manner at all times in the laboratory to make sure you don't make any errors. 2. Follow all written and verbal instructions carefully. If you do not understand a direction or part of a procedure, ask the instructor before proceeding. This is so you don't mess up anything in your procedure and make sure you have the most accurate data.

__Procedure:__

1. Gather 4 four group members. 2. Gather materials. 3. Make 20 signs that inform people where to recycle and persuade them to recycle. 4. Each person takes 5 signs and posts them around rea hall and the gym building. 5. Record data over a five period and every day from the 22nd of February to the 26th check the bins with sinage from 1:00pm to 3:10 pm. 6. Compare and Contrast the amount of waste that could have been recycled. 7. Graph data.

Dependent Variable- Amount of recycleables in trash cans Independent Variable- Sinage advertisment Control Group- Trash cans with out signs over them Expirmental Group- Trash cans with signs over them

__Data:__
 * Number of recycleable || Day 1 no signs || Day 2 || Day3 ||
 * Lamonica || 2 || 12 || 8 ||
 * Wolf || 4 || 8 || 14 ||
 * Kiplinger || 4 || 6 || 4 ||
 * Mancia || 4 || 2 || 5 ||
 * Rattery || 4 || 4 || 8 ||
 * Thorne || 10 || 4 || 2 ||
 * Crews || 3 || 1 || 6 ||
 * Dennis || 6 || 3 || 1 ||
 * Warren || 2 || 2 || 1 ||
 * Rich || 9 || 2 || 0 ||
 * Cramer || 7 || 4 || 1 ||
 * Findley || 4 || 7 || 2 ||
 * Magarity || 9 || 1 || 0 ||
 * Average || 5.2 || 4.3 || 4.0 ||

__Analysis:__

Our final data averages show that placing the signs over the trash cans did show a significant decrease in the amount of recycleables in the classroom trash cans. The first day of collection with no signs, the data average was 5.2. The second day of collection showed a significant drop and the final average was 4.3 pieces of recycleable material. Then finally, the last day of collection dropped to 4.0. The signs definitely persuaded peers to watch what they throw away and what to recycle.





__Conclusion:__ Our hypothesis was supported in this experiment because we said that if we put signs up over classroom trash cans persuading students to recycle, then the amount of recyclable items in the trash would decrease. Our hypothesis was fully supported in this experiment, but even though it was supported we had some errors and challenges along the way. One of the errors that we made during this process was the amount of days we had for collection. The amount of days we had was shortened because of a misunderstanding of the locations of our data collections. We solved this by changing the locations to the classroom bins, instead of hallway bins in Rea Hall and in the Gym Building. Over all, this project really made it clear that if we increase the amount of awareness for recycling then students would be more conscious of what they are throwing away and encourage them to recycle.

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