Module Overview: The Materials Economy-Consumption and Waste

Overview

In this module, students will explore the materials economy (extraction, production, distribution, consumption, disposal) focusing on the responsibilities of decision makers, producers, and consumers as well as the economic, social and environmental impacts. Students will consider their own role in the system and the impacts of the choices they make.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:

  • Evaluate information scientifically in the context of his/her own life.
  • Explain the importance of observation and hypothesis testing in the scientific process, and distinguish between science and non-science practices.
  • Perform scientific investigations in lab setting, gather, analyze and critically evaluate scientific data, and communicate scientific results according to appropriate academic standards. 
  • Identify and evaluate instances where population growth and humans' use of resources impacts the natural environment.
  • Use the concept of sustainability to critique global and local environmental issues, and identify the steps that can be taken to improve environmental conditions and actively participate in solutions to environmental problems.
  • Utilize academic research skills; such as evaluate the quality/credibility of information from various kinds of sources, narrow topics and discern the most important information from texts.  
  • Employ strategies to build and retain vocabulary.
  • Identify how authors organize text both written and oral and use vocabulary for specific purposes and audiences, and apply these strategies to their own academic writing and speaking./li>
  • Utilize the writing process to write academic essays.
  • Improve sentence clarity and structure by addressing errors in the context of their own writing.  
  • CCRs Reading Anchor(s) Level E: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
  • CCRs Writing Anchor(s) Level E: 2,4,5,7,8,9
  • CCRs Speaking/Listening Anchor(s) Level E: 1,2,3
  • CCRs Language Anchor(s)Level E: 1,2,3,4,5,6

Why This is Important

Understanding the the materials economy helps students make important  connections between carbon emissions, resource depletion, poverty and political and economic structures. It also helps students recognize disparity between developing and first world countries and ways that they can make a difference on a local level. Learning about issues related to garbage will help students make more connections to groundwater contamination. Critically thinking about the resources it takes to make and dispose of a product helps students think deeply about relationships between social, political, economic and environmental issues.