At a glance
Individual · three class periods of work time — Unit 3, Days 12, 13 and 14 — then handed in on Day 15 · Format: written analysis with sources
The task
Pick one everyday product and follow it from the ground to the landfill.
Good choices: a smartphone, a pair of running shoes, an aluminium can, a lithium battery, a cotton t-shirt.
The stages
graph LR EX["Extraction"] --> PR["Processing"] --> MF["Manufacture"] MF --> TR["Transport"] --> USE["Use"] --> END["Disposal or recycling"] END -.->|"if recycled"| PR
For each stage, answer:
- Which elements and compounds are involved? Name them properly.
- What energy is used, and where does it come from?
- What waste is produced?
- Who bears the cost — and are they the same people who get the benefit?
Required depth
At least two specific elements traced from source to disposal. For a phone, lithium and cobalt are the obvious pair, and their stories are not the same.
The question that makes this task worth doing
Recycling is presented as the answer. For your product, find out what percentage is actually recycled in practice — not what could be. Then explain the gap.
Success criteria
| Quality | What it looks like in your analysis |
|---|---|
| The whole life cycle, not the visible part | Every stage has something specific in it, including the ones you never see — and a stage you could not find out about says so, rather than being filled with a guess |
| Chemistry named properly | Elements and compounds named and written correctly, with the ones that matter distinguished from the ones that are along for the ride. Never “chemicals” |
| Energy and waste accounted for | Each stage says what energy went in and what came out that nobody wanted |
| Costs and benefits placed with people | Who gains and who pays, named — and where those are not the same people, said plainly |
| Recommendations somebody could act on | Three, each naming the person or body who would have to act and what it would cost them |
Run those five rows over your own draft at the start of the last working period — Judging Your Own Work is the routine — and spend the rest of that period on the row you called weakest.
Hand in
- Life cycle diagram, your own, with your product’s real stages
- Analysis of each stage
- Two elements traced end to end
- Three concrete recommendations, each naming who would have to act
- Source list, saying which stage each source informed
Curriculum connection
C1.1
assess social, environmental, and economic impacts of processes associated with the life cycle of consumer products, considering the elements and compounds used to make them, and suggest ways to enhance positive impacts and/or minimize negative impacts
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C1.2
analyse impacts of using emerging chemical technologies in various fields, including in the skilled trades, and assess factors that influence the development of these technologies
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A2.3
analyse how the development and application of science is economically, culturally, and socially contextualized, by investigating real-world issues
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C2.1
investigate properties, changes, and interactions of matter that are important for the dynamic equilibrium of ecosystems and their sustainability
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