BUILDING SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT New Capacities for Sustainable Waste Management

1. BUILDING SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT New Capacities for Sustainable Waste Management

2. Using fable as an instrument for environmental didactics Workshop 7/12 October 2012 BWS Project - WP6

3. Objectives • Main objectives • •To promote children’s emotional approach to environmental issues through the fantastic and symbolic dimension of fable. • •To reflect on the message conveyed by fable by comparing it to one’s own personal experience. • Indirect objectives • To understand the basic structure of fable. • To promote a positive attitude towards reading and developing curiosity about books. • To encourage listening, coexistence, and group work. • To create original materials, trying different techniques.

4. Differences between fairy tale and fable • In fairy tales characters (ogres, fairies, goblins, etc.) and settings are faboulous, while the characters of fables (animals with human language, behaviours, and shortcomings) are realistic. • Fable teaches a “moral” lesson concerning an ethical principle or a behaviour that is often explicitly presented at the end of the story (sometimes in the form of a proverb). The moral lesson in fairy tales is usually implicit and not central to the story.

5. Characteristics of fable • A fable is a short story usually characterized by a single event and related in a plain, readily understandable way. • It has a simple structure that usually follows a well defined pattern. • It is written either in prose or in verse. • It has few characters that are often animals or plants with human behaviours. • The places where or time when the events happen are not defined in detail (a forrest, a city, a road, etc.). • It has a plain style, with short sentences and specific verbal tenses. • It always contains a moral lesson or a warning that is usually explicit or sometimes implicit.

6. Characteristics of fable • To recapitulate,the main features of fable are: • clarity • simplicity • brevity • the ability to be convincing

7. Suggestions for group work Let the class analyze a fable (a very simple one, if possible) known by all of the students through questions aimed at helping them to understand the roles and structure of the fable. Using pictures that stimulate students’ participation can help.

8. Preparatory exercises • ”Wrong” stories: suggest the children telling the fables changing the features of the characters, their temperament and physical characteristics. • Story salad: let the children play at inventing new fables by mixing the characters of the fables that have already been told. • What happened afterwards? Starting from the end of a known fable, suggest the children imagining what happened afterwards. • Inventing new fables by altering the features of the characters.

9. Basic structure of fable Beginning How the story began; description of the protagonists and the location where the story happens. It answers the following questions: Who? Where? When? In summer the ant forages for food for wintertime. In summer the cicada doesnt’ stop playing.

10. Basic structure of fable Central part It relates the course of the events; action develops from an initial static situation. It answers the question: what is happening? In winter the ant enjoys its food in the warmth of its nest. In winter the cicada is hungry and has no food. It goes to the ant’s and asks for something to eat.

11. Basic structure of fable Conclusion The events and the behaviours of the protagonists lead to a new situation at the end of the story. It answers the questions: how does the story end? What does the story teach? The ant drives the cicada away.

12. The importance of fable in environmental didactics Owing toits brevity andthe simplicity of the language used, fable is essential to convey messages and concepts which are not part of a child’s direct experience. Environmental didactics often deals with themes that are not easily understood by the child. For that reason it is important to use fable both for its value as a story and also as something to build collectively

13. Suggestions for the themes to be developed

14. Suggestions for the themes to be explored 1 – Buy products with as little wrapping as possible (packing material represents about 30-40% of the weight and 50% of the volume of all solid urban waste). 2 – Reduce the volume of each waste (e.g.: flatten plastic bottles before throwing them into the bin). 3 – Do not buy throwaway products (e.g.: plastic cutlery and glasses, tissues, unrechargeable batteries). 4 – Choose durable, repairable and interchangeable batteries. 5 – When you do shopping use reusable bags. 6 – Whenever possible use tap water (if necessary, it can be filtered in special jars or fixed apparatuses) instead of buying bottled water. 7 – Use rechargeable batteries. 8 – Whenever possible buy local products and produce at home as much as you can. 9 – Always cooperate with municipal governments, national consortia, and with those companies that deal with waste in your area for reducing it. Remember that they work for your health and for the health of the environment surrounding you. 10 – Before throwing anything away always remember to ask yourself: can I reuse it in some way? By extending the life cycle of an object we avoid producing a new waste – so resources will be used in a more sustainable way, and buying another object – so the use of raw materials needed for production will be reduced.

15. BUILDING SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT New Capacities for Sustainable Waste Management