Module: Energy and Mineral Resources
DCI: ESS3.A (B) All forms of energy production and other resource
extraction have associated economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical
costs and risks as well as benefits. New technologies and social regulations
can change the balance of these factors.
PE: HS-ESS3-2 Evaluate competing design solutions for developing,
managing, and utilizing energy and mineral resources based on cost-benefit
ratios.
[Clarification
Statement: Emphasis is on the conservation, recycling, and reuse of resources
(such as minerals and metals) where possible, and on minimizing impacts where
it is not. Examples include developing best practices for agricultural soil
use, mining (for coal, tar sands, and oil shales), and pumping (for petroleum and natural
gas). Science knowledge indicates what can happen in natural systems—not what
should happen.]
The ideas here are:
- the production of energy is associated with environmental, social, economic, and geopolitical costs.
- the extraction of other resources are associated with those same costs.
- in addition to the risks discussed, there are also benefits
- technology and regulations can change the balance of the risk/benefit factors.
We did something similar to this in middle school - here's an example question...
Some
factories that burn coal produce smoke with harmful chemicals, such as sulfur.
Scrubbers are devices that are attached to the smokestacks to reduce the amount
of sulfur put into the atmosphere. To evaluate the effectiveness of these
devices, what data would need to be collected
This particular question does a fair job at addressing the PE, because students are evaluating a design solution for managing a mineral resource. The thing it fails at, is comparing competing design solutions. So, we can use this as a start, but we have to add more information. The students need to be looking for a solution that provides the best benefit vs. risk (including the cost). We can't make up any data, so we might have to do quite a bit of research in finding out how companies make these decisions.
We need to also think about comparing forms of energy here, because various types of energy production do different amounts of damage.
Question Ideas:
- Maybe we could simplify this into an easy to read table:
The source of this diagram is here: http://www.nzdl.org/gsdlmod?e=d-00000-00---off-0hdl--00-0----0-10-0---0---0direct-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-50---20-help---00-0-1-00-0-0-11-1-1utfZz-8-00&cl=CL1.16&d=HASHbdde2fe3749493c1a0de2d.4.3&gc=1
We can ask, based on the information in the table, which of the following soil conservation practices would best fit a situation in which X, Y, and Z were high priorities?
- Which of the following provides the best solution to decreasing the impact from the damages done by the practice of metal mining? (recycling?)
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