How can we implement solutions to pollution in our society?

Excited about the newest iPhone? What about the Apple iWatch? Don't you wish you had that new gaming system? Already tired of your Galaxy phone? Before you run off to the store to buy the latest and greatest smartphone, you should pause and take a moment to think about where your electronic gadget is coming from and what you are going to do with your old stuff. 140 million cell phones get thrown out worldwide each year, and those phones contain hundreds of chemicals that are toxic to humans and damage the environment.

For this project, students worked in a team to research and come up with a plan to clean up toxins from e-waste. They acted as peer-researchers at the Silicon Valley Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where executives from Apple and Google come to them regarding the toxins from the millions of old cell phones, computers, and TVs that had been dumped in landfills of Daly City, Redwood City, and San Jose. In order to prepare effectively for this role, students collected background research on e-waste and discussed with their team who they thought was responsible and what they thought the highest leverage solutions might be. Their final product for this project was a Socratic Seminar on e-waste. This project also prepared them to dig into the Bioremediation project where they will be designed an experiment, growing Brassica plants in toxins, and measured the ability of their plants to clean the environment. The final product for the Bioremediation project was a Lab Report with their results and conclusions.

In History, students studied different Enlightenment thinkers throughout history to understand how new ideas dramatically change the world and those around them. Furthermore, students took this idea of a philosophical thinker and applied it to a modern day standard and researched if their are thinkers in the world today that are pushing new ideas forward. These students looked over these modern day thinkers ideas and arguments and proposed a letter for revisions, edits and changes the thinker should make in regards to their ideas for the world.