cleanerNYC school workshops
Helping children understand how everyday choices shape the city around them
Love Where You Live
An interactive CleanerNYC workshop for NYC elementary schools
CleanerNYC offers interactive, age-appropriate workshops that help children understand how litter, waste, and everyday consumption affect their neighborhood and the city around them.
Through discussion, games, questions, and group activities, students explore where waste goes, what it takes to keep New York City clean, and how their own choices can make a difference.
Designed for: grades 1-5
Format: Interactive classroom workshop
Duration: Approximately 45 minutes
Activities: Discussion, games, questions & group exercises
Topics: Litter, waste, responsible consumption & shared public spaces
The goal is not simply to tell children not to litter. It is to develop awareness, responsibility, and habits that can carry beyond the classroom.
Understanding Litter & Waste
Students explore where our waste goes and how litter affects streets, parks, waterways, wildlife, and neighborhoods. Through simple examples and activities, they begin to connect everyday choices with the environment around them.
The Real Cost of a Dirty City
Keeping New York City clean requires thousands of workers, vehicles, equipment, time, and public money. Students discover what happens after something is dropped on the street and learn that litter has environmental, social, and financial consequences.
From Awareness to Action
Students turn what they have learned into action. Through questions and group challenges, they identify realistic things they can do at school, at home, and in their neighborhood—and see how small individual choices can create collective change.