Information to Sponsor a School
Beverage Container Recycling Assembly
Our company offers an extremely engaging, live, in-person assembly program to teach and motivate California elementary school students about beverage container recycling. California municipalities and unincorporated county areas may apply for a grant through CalRecycle to help pay for our informative assemblies. In that circumstance, our assemblies are completely free to the schools in their area. If you are an individual school in a city that does not sponsor our recycling assembly, please contact us for prices.
A Live Show
Our outstanding, experienced performer, takes K-6 grade students and teachers on a journey from the raw materials, through manufacturing, to consumer use, to consumer recycling, to shipping the redeemed materials to be used in more manufacturing. Seeing this journey makes this lesson not only easy to understand for young students but underscores why it is indeed critical that we recycle and not waste natural resources.
Company History
Since 1999, Mark Beckwith, the President of Shows That Teach (Building Block Entertainment Inc.) and writer of “The Crazy Bottles & Cans Show” has written and produced over a dozen live educational shows for elementary school assemblies. Mark has learned how to perfectly balance the entertainment and educational content to completely engage the students yet also make it a valuable learning experience. Shows That Teach programs are widely acclaimed by educators. To achieve this, the educational content of companies’ programs must align with and support the core standards. “The Crazy Bottles & Cans Show” (about beverage containers) gives elementary school students a comprehensive overview of why it is important to recycle bottles and cans.
Teaching Strategies
Educators often use a “Compare and Contrast” technique to put a concept into context. This involves explaining how something is similar to or different from another related idea. For example, in our program, we compare the use of one natural resource, (crude oil used to make polyethylene terephthalate bottles) to a different resource, (trees used to make paper) so that students may comprehend the process. That comparison ultimately gives students a better understanding of the process of making bottles and cans. Teaching the science behind bottles and cans is essential so that educators will be fully satisfied with the value of the assembly.
However, our step-by-step approach also serves our mission of motivating students and teachers to recycle CRV containers, at school and at home. Just as advertisers do with jingles, our assembly program uses original songs with repeating chorus refrains so that students leave with certain ideas such as “that can has worth” in their mind. And of course, we use plenty of humor and audience participation to keep students involved.
School Assembly Synopsis
SONG: “My Favorite Color is Green” – Part 1 of this opening song sets up the traditional definitions of the term “Green”. This is important so that the audience will comprehend why recycling CRV containers is an important part of “Going Green”. When this song reprises later in the show it connects “Going Green” with CRV. Part 1 sets this up.
DEMONSTRATION: “Natural Resources” – Kindergarten through Sixth-grade students have various levels of understanding about how products, such as bottles and cans, initially originate from natural resources such as crude oil, bauxite, manganese, magnesium, etc. This segment of the show is a basic introduction to that concept.
STORY: “Field Trip to Landfill” – This is an interactive story (with a student invited to the stage to help dramatize the action) and sound effects (to add humor). The purpose is to illustrate how this mountain of trash will be even bigger, with more wasted natural resources, if we do not recycle bottles and cans.
SONG: “Oil” – This song is specifically about various products that are made from oil, such as P.E.T. bottles. This is leading up to the next show segment that is specifically about P.E.T. First, it is important to look at the basic idea that we take oil out of the ground and it is used to make products. The repeating refrain in the song is the following:
So many things are made from oil
I’m talkin’ ‘bout oil from under the soil
Things we use every day
But we throw so much away
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The purpose of this repeated chorus is to make the strong point that we do not wish to waste the natural resource of crude oil.
GAME: “P.E.T.” – This “game” gives our performers an opportunity to speak about water and soda bottles and the specific type of plastic with which they are made. This uses the Compare-and-Contrast technique to show that not all plastic containers are the same. Again, the more informed the students are on the topic, the more motivated they will be to recycle. This culminates with a game to challenge some students to say the words “polyethylene terephthalate.”
DEMONSTRATION: “MRF” – This is another destination in the journey of bottles and cans. This segment is a descriptive account of what happens at a Materials Recovery Facility.
DISCUSSION: “Bauxite” – This part of the show discusses the key ingredients used in the manufacturing of aluminum cans. Students learn that bauxite is mined in places such as Australia, Jamaica, etc. The objective of this segment is to position bauxite as a valuable resource that is not to be wasted.
GAME & SONG: “That Can Has Worth” – This is a song about the process of making aluminum cans from resources and the journey of cans to the store and beyond. The following is an example of a verse:
Metal man Roy
Makes an alloy
With manganese and magnesium
It’s used to make aluminum
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Verses like this make this a valuable science lesson.
SONG: “My Favorite Color is Green” – Part 2 of this song (thanks to the Part 1 introduction) is specifically about recycling and CRV. The following is a verse from this song:
My favorite color is green
I’m talking CRV
It’s a recycling thing
Cause cans and bottles aren’t free
When you buy drinks at the store
Bottles and cans cost a little more
But there’s a way to get that money back
GAME: “Recycling Center Versus Landfill” – This game is a learning assessment that involves the entire audience in deciding whether certain items should go to the landfill or to a recycling center. Though it includes other materials other than bottles and cans (e.g. paper), it is important in context. We make it even clearer that the school can make money specifically by recycling bottles and cans, into the receptacle provided by our sponsor.
GAME & SONG: “Plastic Bottles” – At this point in the show, we can now be even more specific about P.E.T. The following is an example of one verse:
Oh to make some cash
I’ll grab some trash
Made of polyethylene terephthalate
My friends and I
Are going to give it a try
To help make the neighborhood clean
And it sells, very well
It’s called Recycling
SONG: “My Beautiful Planet” – This very short finale song simply brings the live assembly show full circle to tie in everything addressed previously into the underlying reasons (not just financial) why we recycle bottles and cans. The objective of this assembly is to inform and motivate. “The Crazy Bottles & Cans Show” is an ideal pep rally for the school to start a recycling campaign.
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Incidentally, we also have professional recordings of these songs available on Apple Music and Amazon Music.
Services and Prices
Our services include contacting school principals using our database, scheduling interested schools, performing an energetic and memorable show, and following up with teacher surveys. This is a completely turnkey service that requires no extra work from the sponsoring city-county staff.
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Our company is based in the Los Angeles area. Our performers are available to travel to any location in California. We will block-book schools in central and northern California to make it affordable and practical for municipalities. Prices vary depending on location. City or county staff may contact us for a price quote.