UNIT ACTIVITIES
Day One: Benefits of Rare Earth Elements
Essential Question: What are benefits and environmental consequences of our use of Rare Earth Elements?
Objective: Students will analyze and evaluate the benefits and the environmental consequences of the use of rare earth elements.
Standard: HS-ETS1-1 Engineering Design & RST.9-10.1
Class Activities: Opening discussion questions: Students working in pairs will answer the following discussion questions. Students will be asked to name the benefits each product provides and any possible environmental impacts.
Task: Answer each of the following questions with your partner. For each product / technology describe the benefits and possible environmental impacts.
What are the most important products that you use in your daily life?
What are the most important technologies that you use in your daily life?
What are the most important products (or product systems) in our society?
What are the most important technologies in our society ( in medicine, defense, scientific research) ?
What about in green technologies ( those that address climate change)?
Class Discussion on student responses. Teacher will show list of rare earth elements prominent in our technologies, products, and product systems (List is located in Teacher Resources). To analyze specific uses of each element, students will engage in guided analysis of Video:
Rare Earth Elements and How They are Used: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2xHfP4lAlg)
Each student will be assigned two elements to analyze. Students work independently to note the use, chemical / physical properties, benefits, and potential environmental impact for their assigned elements. Once finished class will work collaboratively to fill in a table that summarizes their findings. Table will be posted in Google Classroom as resource for homework assignment. (Table format is located in Teacher Resources).
Homework: Read article: Life Without Rare Earth Elements: (http://www.acschemmatters-digital.org/acschemmatters/december2016?pg=14#pg14) and answer set of analysis questions: (Analysis Questions in Student Resources) Once finished use table from class discussion and any of the websites listed in the classroom to answer the following (Websites in Student Resources). Select a rare earth element that is of importance to your personal life, and one that is important to society( for example: a green technology, defense, or medicine). Description should include the particular properties (magnetic, optical, electrical) that make the element beneficial to you and to society. What are the possible environmental consequences of our use of this element? List the harm that might occur to living organisms, people, and the environment (land, water, soil). Work should be completed as a narrative summary.
Day Two : Environmental Impacts of Rare Earth Elements
Essential Question : What are the environmental impacts of human activity?
Objective: Students will evaluate their ecological footprint and the environmental consequences of the use of rare earth elements.
Standards: HS-ETS1-1 & RST.9-10.1
Class Activities: Students will begin by viewing video “Environmental Impacts of Rare Earth Element” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_PbVCgdut4) that describes the environmental impacts of the processing or rare earth metals. Class will note impacts on land, air, water, workers, living organisms, and on GHG emissions. Findings will be posted to table from day one.
Teacher will then explain that we measure the impact of products and product systems using the Life Cycle Assessment. Teacher will guide students in notes on the steps of the assessment. Teacher will define: Scope and Objectives, Life Cycle Inventory and Life Cycle Assessment. Particular focus will be on the (LCI) inventory of the input of resources and output of emissions, and the Impact Assessment phase of the cycle. Students will review PowerPoint “Life Cycle Assessment: What it is” ( https://www.dartmouth.edu/~cushman/courses/engs37/LCA.pdf) that shows how LCAs are used to assess impacts of products. After notes are completed students will view video “A Life Cycle Assessment: A Materials Perspective" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4LOqt7U-JE) that introduces life cycle assessments in context of engineering practices. Students will then complete a set of analysis questions that complement the LCA notes and introduce the role of materials engineering practices as a means to address environmental impacts of product cycles: (Analysis Questions in Student Resources).
Homework: To determine the impact that our lifestyles have on the environment,, the class will complete an Ecological Footprint analysis to determine the environmental impact of their activities in terms of carbon footprint and sustainability of their practices.
Ecological Footprint Calculator: (https://www.footprintcalculator.org)
Day Three and Day Four: Life Cycle Assessment
Essential Question: How can Life Cycle Assessments be used to determine sustainability of products and product systems?
Objective: Students will use LCAs to evaluate products / product systems. Students will use assessment to propose ways to ameliorate environmental impacts.
Standards: HS-ETS1-3 & RST.9-10.1
Class Activities: Class will begin with a discussion of ecological footprint calculations with a focus on ways to lower footprints and make lifestyles more sustainable. After discussion, teacher will review ways that LCAs are used to analyze and evaluate product life cycles. Teacher will review slides from materials PowerPoint “A Life Cycle Assessment: A Materials Perspective”, to illustrate units used in LCA assessment. Teacher will then lead discussion on how to analyze the energy and emissions at given phases of the life cycle ( Resource acquisition, Manufacturing, Use, Disposal, and End of Life Recycling), and how possible engineering changes in each of the phases might lower energy requirements and CO2 emissions.
Once completed, students will be given a guide sheet to be used in the analysis of the LCA of various products / products systems (Sheet is located in Student Resources). Students will first determine relative scale to be used to quantify the inventory of inputs / outputs for their selected product. (Note: scale is a relative scale determined by class given that actual quantitative data is not appropriate for this unit. Actual data will be explored later in this unit. Numbers for this day will be used to compare products). Students will work in pairs to select (one product that is personally important and one that is important to society ( clean energy, industry, medicine, etc.). Students will use sets of LCA found at: Design Life Cycle: (http://www.designlife-cycle.com). Each LCA provides inputs and emission information as an Infographic and in narrative form. For each product student teams will determine a relative score to be used to compare products.
Day Four: Conclusion of LCA Assessment: Engineering Solutions
Activity: Teams will complete LCA analysis. Each team will then be responsible for determining at least two ways to improve the environmental impact of their product. Teams should suggest how to better engineer aspects of any phase of the life cycle. Class will discuss assessments and engineering suggestions.
Day Five and Day Six: Recovery of Alum from Aluminum Cans
Essential Question: How are essential metals recovered from waste products?
Objective: Students will conduct a laboratory to recover Alum from waste aluminum cans.
Standards: HS-ESS3-4 & HS-PS2-6.
Class Activities: Teacher will review the role of recycling in reducing environmental impacts of products. Teacher will introduce LCA data for aluminum cans and the importance of recycling aluminum. Students will then be given laboratory guide sheets used during laboratory: (Laboratory is located in Student Resources)
Day Six: Conclusion of Laboratory
Class Activities: Students will complete laboratory. Once finished pairs of students will work on completing post -lab conclusion questions.
Day Seven and Day Eight: Life Cycle Assessment and recycling of Rare Earth Elements
Essential Question: How can recycling and recovery of REE lessen the environmental consequences of their usage?
Objective: Students will evaluate LCA of rare earth metals and propose ways to modify recycling protocols and reduce GHG emissions.
Standards: HS-ETS1-2 & HS-ETS1-4
Class Activities: Students will analyze data from the LCA of REEs. Data will highlight importance of recycling end of life products and recovering resources. Students will analyze current methods of recycling and propose ways to engineer changes that would increase the yield of recovered resources and lessen the environmental impacts of current recovery practices.
Students will receive abbreviated protocols for current practices (Protocols are from 32 ). Each team will determine which protocols can be reengineered to provide either a more efficient yield, reduce energy requirement, or reduce emissions. This activity will be completed on the following day.
Day Eight: Presentation of Engineering designs for Recycling REEs.
Activity: Each team will present their engineering design.
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