Energy, Climate, Environment

Activity #5

• Step 1 - Bell ringer: What happens to an unusable car, one that cannot be repaired? Where does it go? What happens to it?
• Step 2 - After students have had an appropriate amount of time to answer the Bell ringer questions, ask for an oral response. Have students share their thoughts and feelings aloud. Try to find some consensus to their ideas about the topic. Write a summarizing sentence on the board.
• Step 3 - Underneath the summary write the word BIODEGRADABLE. Ask students to define the word. When an appropriate description has been explained, ask students to convene as a small group and estimate the percentage of a car that is biodegradable. Have groups share out their responses. Write their responses on the board around the word biodegradable.
• Explain to students that you are going to be going on a mini field trip, but before you go they will need to create a three column chart. Label each of the three sections as follows: Under the Hood, On the Outside, and the Inside. Have students label all the parts they can think of on a vehicle in each section.
• Step 4 - Next organize the class for a mini field trip; students will need to bring their three column charts. Divide the entire class into three groups. Take the class to the location of the vehicle you've gained permission to inspect (it might be easier to have three vehicles, one for each sections). Each class will be examining one component of the vehicle at a time and will then rotate. Give students time to go through each section and write down all the different parts they see, feel and touch (for example indoors: seats, steering wheel, vents, buttons, odometer, gear shift, carpet, mats, cloth, etc.). Allow them time to ask questions for parts they're unfamiliar with. After each student has had the opportunity to see all three sections, bring them back inside to share and their findings with each other and create one master list.
• Step 5 - Return to the idea of biodegradable. Ask students to highlight on their parts sheet any component they believe matches the definition they created of biodegradable. Share their findings. Discuss the difference between recycled (which many parts are) and biodegradable. Then explain to students that less than one percent of a vehicle is biodegradable. The only thing that is is a liquid.
• Step 6 - Pass out the bottles of vehicle fluid listed above. Ask one volunteer from each group to read aloud the bottle's ingredients, and the bottle label's warnings. After each reading ask students to guess what effects that fluid might have on the environment if left leaking out of a broken vehicle. Then ask if they believe the choice was the biodegradable fluid (all natural windshield wiper fluid usually made with water and vinegar is the only option).
• Step 7 - Return to the bell ringer question, do students feel the summary on the board is still correct, why or why not? Discuss in groups. Then pass out the pictures of a car junking site. Ask students to describe in words what they see in the photos on the back of their three column charts.

The following day -

• Step 8 - Bell ringer: Congress has announced a federal tax of $ 2,500.00 to anyone who junks a car, like the ones we saw yesterday. Is this a good idea, why or why not? Discuss student ideas.
• Step 9 - Give every student one used car profile card. After students have read their cards they must decide if they are willing to make the required repairs and safe their car, or junk it and pay the Federal tax. Have students write their decision, and the reason for their decision on the back of the card.
• Step 10 - Separate the class into the car savers, and the car junkers. Have the car savers calculate the total amount spent in dollars to repair their cars. Then they must calculate the total space saved from the landfill. Have the car junkers calculate the total savings in dollars they made by junking their vehicles. Then they must calculate the total space their cars take up in the junk yard. Afterwards each group will share their findings. We'll discuss the impact of this hypothetical tax and see if any opinions have changed based on the data they've seen and calculated.
• Step 11 - Students will now examine The Department of Energy's Data Book Table 3.7 available at http://cta.ornl.gov/data/index.shtml. They will use this data to answer the following questions:
  1. What trends do you see in American car usage?
  2. Are newer cars driven more or less often than older cars? Why might that be?
  3. What do these statistics tell us about the cars in landfills?
  4. How might we change the current state of car usage/recycling?