How do green plastics reduce waste and environmental pollution? Budding scientists create and test a variety of compounds used in green plastics during an insightful experiment. Beginning with startling statistics and ending with plastic-eating enzyme action, the lab is sure to engage the class!

Concepts

the green movement, human impact on the environment, environmental science, plastic, sustainability, polymers, energy consumption, hydrolysis, enzymes

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Present the information on the second page to get the class thinking green
• Show a video that describes why green chemistry is important if your students have not yet encountered the concept
  

Classroom Considerations

• Run the reactions yourself to ensure everything is working properly before lab day
• Scale the lab back to just one or two of the included experiments to reduce the amount of time and materials involved
  

Pros

• Presents several different experiment options
• The content is a great choice for examining current research into ways to minimize human impact on the environment
  

Cons

• Two of the supporting links in the guide are no longer functional
  

Common Core

RST.11-12.3