Student Response Sheet: Sustainability of Polymers and Plastics Assessment

[Student Name] Year 9

Instructions:

 Respond to the Knowledge and Understanding response task (Sustainability of Polymers and
Plastics) questions on this document.
 Answer the dot point questions in paragraph form.
 Consider using (where appropriate):

 Images
 Annotations
 Drawings
 Procedures
 Design solutions

1. Define the following key words:

 Sustainability
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 Economic Sustainability
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 Environmental Sustainability
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 Social Sustainability 
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2. Recyclables
 Identify some materials you would use in your Design and Technologies learning area.
Examples include cutlery, hand tools, containers, building materials, fabrics
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 Divide the list of materials into recyclable and non-recyclable materials

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 Explain how you could use the 5 R’s for these materials
 Reduce: Can we make less products? Could we reduce the size of the material?
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 Reuse: What could we do to encourage people to reuse the material? Or use it for other
purposes?
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 Recycle: Can we encourage people to recycle the material? What other possible uses could the
material have?
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  Refuse: Do we need to use the specific material? What could we use instead? Can we use
other raw materials to make the product?
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 Repurpose: What can we use the item for that is not its intended reason?
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 Go to Google images and look up four photographs of recycled plastics. Think about the following:
What do you see? What does it make you think about? Are there any problems that you can
identify? What questions do the photographs raise for you?
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 Walk around your house and identify 3 things that are plastic. How does this relate to
sustainability? 
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 Explain what the different numbers on plastic packaging mean. What can you do with each
number?
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3. Research polymers and plastics and then answer the following research questions:
 History
 Explain the process in which it was first discovered. How safe was the process?
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 Describe how plastics were originally used. What items did designers design or make using
plastics?
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 Describe what sorts of jobs are created by using plastics in society

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 Research and make a timeline of various types of plastics and when they decompose
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 Chemical Compounds
 Identify the chemical compounds used in making plastics
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 Identify if there any non-toxic chemical compounds

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 Explain why some plastic materials decompose quicker than other materials
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 Future
 Explain how plastics could be used in the future to create a sustainable way of life
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 Make predictions on how you may be using plastics in the future (using drawings to consider
what products could change)
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Student Mark: