This is a unit designed to bring environmental considerations into a consumer math curriculum. It is structured around five activities: (1) doing mini-studies on environmental issues, (2) evaluating consumer products from an environmental point of view, (3) graphing and fitting a line to fifty years of temperature data for two cities to see if the data supports global warming theory, (4) doing a water conservation problem using different showerheads, and (5) each student writing a statement about his or her environmental responsibility.
Along the way students keep a four-day journal, to get a closer look at their own environmental impact, and analyze four relevant quotations. Here is one of the quotations.
We live at an apocalyptic moment, a moment when the fate of our civilization is revealed, and fundamental choices are posed.
David Cayley
The Age of Ecology, viii
(Recommended for Consumer Math, Grades 10-2)
Key Words
History Environmental Impace
