RAINBOWS
Litter critters
What you'll need
- A large, clear space
- Torn pages from used magazines or newspapers, balled up to represent pieces of litter
- A timer
Aim of the activity
Can you imagine a world where there’s no rubbish on the ground? There are plenty of reasons why littering is bad, so let’s tell the litter bugs to stop, and help protect our planet.
Note to leader
Change the number of Earth heroes if you have a large or small unit.
Litter is bad for our health, animals and our planet. Animals might mistake litter for their food, eat it and get very sick. Depending on what the material is, it might take many years to break down and will stay in our communities for a very long time.
Step by step
Before you start, place the balled-up sheets of newspaper or magazines on the floor around the room – these are pieces of litter.
1
Has anyone heard of ‘litter’ before? What do you think it means? Rubbish that isn’t put away properly is called litter. It could be on the pavement or in the park or the sea. How do you think litter could be bad?
2
Choose something to be the Earth and put it in the middle of the space. This could be a chair or box. Pick one wall to be the bin.
3
Your leader will choose two Rainbows to be Earth heroes. Everyone else is litter bugs.
Earth heroes: strike your best superhero pose! Protect Earth by catching litter bugs and telling them, ‘put your litter in the bin!’
Litter bugs: put your fingers on your head like antennae. You need to grab a piece of litter from the floor, then put it on the Earth. You can only put one piece of litter on Earth at a time, but try to add as many as you can. If you get caught, you must put your litter in the bin.
4
Ready, steady, GO! You have two minutes to complete your missions!
5
Time’s up! Count how many pieces of litter were put on Earth.
6
Was it hard keeping the planet clean with so many litter bugs? How do you think we could have less litter?
7
Play the game again – but now every time a litter bug is caught, they turn into an Earth hero, too!
8
Did it help having more Earth heroes protecting Earth? The more people we tell not to litter, the less we’ll have in our local area. Together, think about what you can do to tell your community not to litter. Perhaps you could draw a poster, sing a song or start a petition?