Activity: Make a Contemporary Connection to Inventions

Which modern inventions are worth the cost to the environment? 

Consider how life has changed since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Use this same process outlined below for evaluating the environmental impact of an invention in the activity Change and Consequences. This time students investigate and evaluate an object in the modern world.

1. Start by evaluating the item’s importance to our current day lives by creating an “importance grading rubric” from 1-5 with defined criteria for each grade. For example, 5 = most important, but what does most important mean? Survival, happiness, productivity, convenience?  
2. Each student or group of students will investigate the environmental impact of one modern invention.   
   Suggestions: toilet paper, sunscreen, pesticide, disposable plastic cups, indoor plumbing, or have students pick something in their own homes.  Note: objects made with dozens of materials (like cell phones) will be much more complicated to research than objects made with just a few materials.  
3. Now consider the environmental impact of your invention. You may want to create another rubric for helping you to grade how important each environmental consequence is.  
4. Conclusion: Is your object’s importance worth its impact to the environment? If not, are there modifications in material use that could improve it?  
5. Compare answers given by others. Which of these modern inventions are worth their impact?  Compare answers given by others. What factors were involved in making your decision? Did you think about social, cultural, or political reasons? Were they more personal?
6. Extension: Create a public awareness campaign that educates people about how best to use your object (or not use it) so that it minimizes the negative impacts on the planet.