High School Curriculum

Made in collaboration with Facing the Future, “Buy, Use, Toss” is an interdisciplinary unit that includes ten fully-planned lessons. This unit is correlated with national science and social studies standards and will lead your students through an exploration of the system of producing and consuming goods that is called the materials economy. Students will learn about the five major steps of the materials economy; Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption, and Disposal. They will also be asked to analyze the sustainability of these steps, determining how consumption can benefit people, economies, and environments.

Our most recent addition to the Story of Stuff curricula comes from one of our community members, Anne B. Anne put together a lesson for high school-level French classes based on The Story of Stuff.

This activity targets students in their 3rd or 4th year of high school French. It consists of:

• A French illustrated and simplified reading based on the French translation of The Story of Stuff
• A group activity to present a part of the reading on posters
• Directions for a gallery walk with those posters
• A worksheet for note-taking during the presentation