Litterati

Litter is everywhere – but how much is there, and why does it matter? Litterati is an online citizen science (OCS) project that allows participants to photograph, upload and tag litter in their own area.

URL: www.litterati.org

Reach: Worldwide

Nature of science focus: OCS projects can be used to develop any of the Nature of Science (NoS) substrands. Identify aspects of NoS that your students need to get better at or understand more fully and then frame your unit to be very clear about these things when you do them.

Science capability focus: Gather and interpret data, Use evidence, Critique evidence, Interpret representations, Engage with science

Science focus: pollution, environmental science, plastics, properties of materials, sustainability

Some suggested science concepts:

• Litter can be grouped into different types based on its properties.
• Recycling codes and practices are based on the properties of the materials.
• We can recycle some kinds of rubbish more easily than others.
• Litter is harmful to the environment.

Many concepts could be learned – focusing on a few can often be more powerful. Develop your learning outcomes and success criteria from these concepts as well as the Nature of Science strand and the science capabilities.

Some examples of learning outcomes:

Students can:

• categorise a variety of different litter types based on their properties
• interpret visual representations of data relating to litter types collected
• explain about the source and major contributors of litter in their own area
• apply their knowledge to suggest a variety of strategies for getting rid of particular types of litter in their own area.

You don’t understand or think about the impact [litter] has until you see it up close. What is does to the environment and what it does to wildlife is horrible.

Lower secondary student

About Litterati

Litterati is a free downloadable app that uses geotags and keywords to identify problem areas and identify the most commonly found products and brands. In 2020 they opened up access to the Litterati’s Global Litter Database, which has over 6,000,000 pieces of litter photographed, mapped, and labeled.

Although it is designed for users over 13 years of age, teachers can set up a club that their students join.

Citizen scientists can take a photo of a piece of litter and tag it using the COMB acronym:

C = category (food, coffee, fizzy drink, etc.)

O = object (bottle, cup, bag, etc.)

M = material (plastic, paper, aluminium, etc.)

B = brand (McDonalds, Coca Cola, etc.)

The app adds a geotag, and the teacher can then download the club’s dataset, and as a class, you can explore the trends and patterns across your own data. Analysing the data supports the ‘engage with science’ capability as students can use their data to address particular problem types of litter in their own area.

By analysing the results of litter logging, discussions could be had about the results and what they mean. The flow-on to allowing students to show that they are “ready, willing and able” to take action on a science issue is obvious. There are many actions that the students could take to develop in this area – writing to the principal using evidence to back up a suggested school-wide action, presenting to the board of trustees or sharing their research and ideas through school assemblies, making posters and so on. The ways to raise local awareness are significant.

Using Litterati's Open Data you can download custom data subsets from the Global Litter Database. The tool can help you generate data reports of up to 50,000 pieces of litter and can be filtered by type, country, date etc.