Yüsra Temel, a student of the Department of Preschool Education at Istanbul Medeniyet University Faculty of Educational Sciences, developed a student project to raise awareness about waste management and recycling. Temel’s project titled “Don’t Let our Tomorrows Go to Waste” was consulted by Asst. Prof. Nihan Şahinkaya, and supported by Gül Nesil Private Kindergarten.
The project was planned with the aim of creating “zero waste” and “recycling” awareness both among children and adults to activate them. With this aim, activities on zero waste and recycling were held for 9 weeks with the participation of 13 four-year-old children in the project school along with their families.
As part of the project activities aiming to increase awareness about responsible consumption, new dishes were made using stale bread with the motto of “Don’t throw it in the trash, recycle it”; a zero waste theater play was performed; puppets were made from odd socks to ensure recycling, reuse, and sustainability of old clothes; the participants were encouraged to reduce the use of plastic bags by providing them with cloth bags and personal bags were created by painting cloth bags.
To raise awareness about recycling, a game of sorting and recycling waste was played with the children and the information on the subject was transferred in accordance with the age level of the participants. Also, recycling bins were provided to the project school. Brochures were distributed to inform the target audience about zero waste and recycling. With the information given, the wastes suitable for recycling in the school and students’ houses were collected and thrown into the recycle bins to contribute to recycling. As the last activity of the project, municipal teams were called to the school, and the wastes accumulated so far were correctly separated and delivered to the teams for recycling.
In the post-project evaluation, it was observed that the children became conscious about the waste of water and electricity and responsible consumption and production. At the beginning of the project, children could not distinguish between garbage and waste, but at the end of the project, it was seen that they threw waste materials into appropriate recycling bins without the need for external guidance.
