This lesson about supply chains, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the environmental impacts of making goods includes student pages, a mind-mapping activity, a podcast, and a map reading exercise.
The podcast talks about the problem of scaling up clean energy technologies while also ensuring people's rights and protecting the environment.
Teaching Tips
Positives
Students may be surprised to learn how many locations raw materials come from to make just one tech device.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals can be printed for display in the classroom.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with the concept that every product we use is created from raw materials that are sourced, processed, manufactured, and transported.
Differentiation
Social studies or economics classes could use this resource to support their discussion on understanding supply chains and the importance of certification labels to distinguish responsibly produced goods.
Science and social studies classes could use this resource to examine how the mining industry negatively affects the environment and the injustices associated with the storage sites for spent radioactive fuels or other hazardous wastes.
Scientist Notes
The resource provides insights on adopting sustainability guidelines in an organization's supply chain. It explores opportunities in energy transition and the importance of using clean technology to reduce global carbon footprints. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-1 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.
HS-ESS3-4 Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.1.9-12 Analyze how incentives influence choices that may result in policies with a range of costs and benefits for different groups.
D2.Eco.15.9-12 Explain how current globalization trends and policies affect economic growth, labor markets, rights of citizens, the environment, and resource and income distribution in different nations.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Science & Technical Subjects (6-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.9 Synthesize information from a range of sources (e.g., texts, experiments, simulations) into a coherent understanding of a process, phenomenon, or concept, resolving conflicting information when possible.
