Grade 5 ELA Performance Task: Recycling
This assignment is a performance task focused on recycling. Students will review multiple sources about recycling, answer research questions, and write an informational article using information from the sources. The assignment is divided into two parts: answering questions about the sources and writing an informational article.
Group 1
Student Directions
Recycling Informational Performance Task
Task: Your school has added a new recycling bin to every classroom in an effort to reduce waste. Students are studying the process of recycling and what happens after the waste leaves the classroom. You decide to do some research and find three sources about recycling.
After you have reviewed these sources, you will answer some questions about them. Briefly skim the sources and the questions that follow. Then, go back and read the sources carefully so you will have the information you will need to answer the question(s) and complete your research. You may click on the Global Notes button to take notes on the information you find in the sources as you read. You may also use scratch paper to take notes.
In Part 2, you will write an informational article using information you have read.
Directions for Beginning: You will now review several sources. You can review any of the sources as often as you like.
Research Questions: After reviewing the sources, use the rest of the time in Part 1 to answer questions about them. Your answers will be scored. Also, your answers will help you think about the information you have read and viewed, which should help you write your informational article.
You may click on the Global Notes button or refer back to your scratch paper to review your notes when you think it would be helpful. Answer the questions in the spaces below the items.
Both the Global Notes on the computer and your written notes on scratch paper will be available to you in Part 1 and Part 2 of the performance task.
Source 1.1
Got Garbage?
by Francie Israeli
Is taking the garbage out to the curb part of your chores? Ever wonder what happens to the trash after your garbage collector takes it away?
Americans throw out a lot of trash—251 million tons of it a year.
There are many people whose job it is to make sure that the trash from your trash can ends up where it belongs—whether that is in a landfill, an incinerator, or a recycling facility [factory] that turns garbage into new stuff.
Garbage truck drivers and helpers drive the big trucks, pick up your garbage bins and bags, and haul the trash away. This is a very important job. Can you imagine what your street would look like without trash collectors? Garbage would pile up in large, smelly heaps in front of homes and businesses and in city parks.
The men and women in the garbage industry invented the technology that lets us recycle garbage into new products. Recycling saves a great deal of energy, conserves [saves] natural resources, and keeps the air and water cleaner. Many towns and cities have programs requiring people to separate trash that can be recycled from trash that cannot.
Recycling facilities process and bundle the things that can be reused. In most facilities, the sorting is done by machine. The recyclables are crushed by machine, bundled into bales, and shipped out to factories where they begin their second life. Recyclables can be made into the same product—such as newspaper or aluminum cans. They can also be made into totally new things, such as turning plastic bottles into fleece jackets or lumber for the back deck.
A long time ago, collected trash would often end up in garbage dumps that were really just open pits. These were smelly, dirty places that weren’t very pleasant to work in or live around. Today, the garbage industry uses science to make sure that modern landfills and garbage processing facilities are safe, clean, and protective of the environment. In one example, a former landfill in New York City is now being turned into a massive park almost three times the size of Manhattan’s famous Central Park! ...
Did you know that garbage can be used to light and heat your home? Using trash as a source of energy keeps the environment clean and reduces our need to rely on fossil fuels like petroleum. Because trash is what is known as a “renewable resource”—it’s always around.
And after a landfill has finished its useful life, it can be turned into a park, a wildlife refuge, or even a golf course. Landscape architects and designers working in the garbage industry can transform what was once a place for trash into a space that can be enjoyed by the whole community.
1 incinerator: a machine used for burning garbage 2 technology: the use of science to invent useful things or solve problems 3 bales: large packages of material tightly bound with twine or wire 4 landscape architects: people whose job it is to plan or design scenery or grounds
Got Garbage? by Francie Israeli. Copyright © 2010 by Carus Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of Carus Publishing Company.
Source 1.2
Recycling a Can
by Cynthia MacGregorSoda cans are made from a material called aluminum. Aluminum is made from bauxite (BAWX-ite), which is dug up from the ground. Let’s follow a recycled aluminum can and see what happens to it.
The Cycle Starts Mary and Tom live in different towns, with different recycling methods. Tom’s town has curbside recycling. This means that Tom and his family can rinse out their used cans and put them in a plastic bin. Tom and his parents put the bin out near the street. A truck comes and collects all the cans.
Mary’s town has no curbside recycling, but there is a recycling center. When Mary’s family has saved a lot of cans, they take the cans to the recycling center.
The Recycling Plant From the recycling center or the recycling truck, the cans are sent to a recycling plant. The plant is a building full of machinery where the cans are put through the recycling process. The cans may get to the plant by truck, train, or ship.
It is important to recycle. In one year, we save enough energy by recycling cans to light a medium-sized city for six years! When a soda can is recycled, it isn’t just refilled with more soda and sent back out again. It goes through many different steps.
Shredded and Heated Recycling plants work in different ways. In some plants, a machine flattens the aluminum can first. Other recycling plants don’t do this step. Whether or not the can has been flattened, it is shredded into small pieces.
These aluminum pieces are put into a large oven. The oven’s heat removes the paint from the aluminum. It also removes any moisture [liquid] that may still be on the aluminum.
Screened and Cleaned The aluminum pieces are put on top of a large, flat screen—something like the screens that might cover your windows at home. Any dirt on the aluminum pieces falls through the screen. The clean aluminum pieces stay on top of the screen.
When the aluminum pieces are free of all paint, moisture, and dirt, they are ready for the next step in the recycling process.
Into the Furnace Next, the aluminum pieces are put into a very hot furnace. The furnace melts the pieces. The molten, or melted, aluminum is poured into molds. These molds are long, flat, empty containers. When the aluminum cools, it takes the shape of the molds and hardens into flat rectangles.
These big, thick sheets of aluminum are called ingots. Each ingot can weigh between 20,000 and 40,000 pounds. That’s about ten times as much as a car weighs!
Squashed and Flattened A machine smooths the top and bottom surfaces of the aluminum sheets. Then the sheets, or ingots, are flattened. They are put through a machine with giant steel rollers. The rollers press the aluminum to make the sheets much thinner.
The aluminum passes between the rollers several times, and each time it comes out thinner. Finally the aluminum sheet is only about a quarter inch thick.
A Two-Mile Coil In another piece of machinery called a finishing mill, the aluminum is made hard enough and thin enough that it can be rolled up. The edges are trimmed, too. Now it is called a coil.
If you unwound one of these aluminum coils, it could be up to two miles long! It takes more than one million recycled cans to make just one of these coils.
From Coil to Foil Now the rolled-up aluminum coils are ready to be made into many kinds of new things. Some aluminum is used to make car parts. Some aluminum is used to make pots and pans or aluminum foil.
Much of the aluminum that is wrapped in coils is sent to a can manufacturer (man-you-FAK-chur-ur). This aluminum will be turned into soda cans once again.
A Two-Month Cycle Can manufacturers make more than ten million cans every day. A soda company will buy these cans and fill them with soda once again. There is no limit to the number of times we can recycle a can.
The recycling process takes about sixty days. That’s two months from the time Tom put his can into the recycling bin until the time someone else buys a new can of soda made from the aluminum of Tom’s old can. When you buy a can of soda, you may even get a can made from some of the aluminum you recycled!
Excerpt from Recycling a Can by Cynthia MacGregor. Copyright © 2003 by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.
Excerpt from Recycling a Can by Cynthia MacGregor. Copyright © 2003 by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.
Source 1.3
Milk Jug Lumber by Jae O. Haroldsen
In March 1987, a tugboat pulled a barge loaded with garbage from New York City down the eastern seaboard. No state would let it dock. Why? There was too much garbage and too little landfill space. Landfills were already spilling over with plastics.
Scientists were looking for new ways to recycle trash, especially plastics.
Dr. Tom Nosker, a scientist at Rutgers University, says, “We asked the public for empty soda bottles.” People sent not only soda bottles but [also] milk jugs, detergent containers, plastic cups, and more.
A Mixed Bag Dr. Nosker let other scientists take the soda bottles. “The rest contained about eighty percent milk jugs and detergent bottles,” he says. “Twenty percent was a jumble of different plastics.” Dr. Nosker started to melt down a mix of plastics.
Each type of plastic melts at a different temperature, so not everything in the mix melted. Little pieces floated in the taffy-like mix. “I forced the mix into molds shaped like rectangles and circles,” he says.
When the mix cooled, Dr. Nosker drilled a hole into it and turned in a screw. He wondered, could mixed plastics be made into a substitute for wood?
Why Milk Jugs? Wood makes a good building material because it is strong (holds weight) and stiff (doesn’t crumple). There is no single type of plastic that is both strong and stiff.
Milk jugs are strong. (Try tearing one.) Milk jugs are not stiff. (Crush one.) Plastic forks are stiff but not strong.
Dr. Nosker looked at the floating pieces. He had an idea. He needed the right mix of milk jugs and plastic forks.
After Dr. Nosker washed and sorted the plastics, he melted each type of plastic separately. He began mixing milk jugs and plastic forks (and spoons and knives) in different amounts, testing each batch’s strength and stiffness. In time, he produced a type of lumber matching the strength and stiffness of wood. In the mid-1990s, Dr. Nosker’s plastic lumber first appeared for building fences, decks, playgrounds, and picnic tables.
Today, recycled plastic is being used for railroad ties and even a forest-service bridge. Think of it. One of your drained milk jugs may be supporting a heavy freight train or fire truck rolling toward a forest fire!
In the future, Dr. Nosker thinks larger bridges or artificial bone may be made from recycled plastics. He is still mixing.
Milk Jug Lumber by Jae O. Haroldsen. Copyright © 2007 by Highlights for Children, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Highlights for Children, Inc.
Milk Jug Lumber by Jae O. Haroldsen. Copyright © 2007 by Highlights for Children, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Highlights for Children, Inc.
Question 1a
Source #1 discusses garbage and recycling. Explain how the information in Source #2 adds to the reader’s understanding of recycling. Give two details from Source #2 to support your explanation.
Question 1b
Which source has the most useful information about how people are working on experiments to try and find ways to recycle? Choose one answer that gives the source number and correctly explains why this is the most useful source.
Question 1c
Each source explains recycling. Explain why this topic is important. Give two examples, one example from Source #1 and one example from Source #2, to support your explanation. For each example, include the source title or number.
Group 2
Student Directions
Recycling Informational Performance Task
Part 2 You will now review your notes and sources, and plan, draft, revise, and edit your writing. You may use your notes and go back to the sources. Now read your assignment and the information about how your writing will be scored; then begin your work.
Your Assignment: Your class has been learning about different ways things are recycled and is now ready to create a display for the upcoming Open House. For your part in the project, you are going to write an informational article about recycling. Your article will be read by other students, teachers, and parents who visit the Open House.
Using multiple sources, develop a main idea about recycling. Choose the most important information from more than one source to support your main idea. Then, write an informational article that is several paragraphs long. Clearly organize your article and support your main idea with details from the sources. Develop your ideas clearly and use your own words, except when quoting directly from the sources. Be sure to give the source title or number when using details from the sources.
REMEMBER: A well-written informational article:
- has a clear main idea.
- is well organized and stays on the topic.
- has an introduction and conclusion.
- uses transitions.
- uses details from the sources to support your main idea.
- puts the information from the sources in your own words, except when using direct quotations from the sources.
- gives the title or number of the source for the details or facts you included.
- develops ideas clearly.
- uses clear language.
- follows rules of writing (spelling, punctuation, and grammar usage).
Question 2a
Now begin work on your informational article. Manage your time carefully so that you can:
- plan your informational article.
- write your informational article.
- revise and edit the final draft of your informational article.
For Part 2, you are being asked to write an informational article that is several paragraphs long. Type your response in the box below. The box will get bigger as you type.
Remember to check your notes and your prewriting/planning as you write and then revise and edit your informational article.
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