This lesson is originally designed as an outreach activity for high school students, and it can be easily transformed and integrated into current K-12 courses. In this educational module, students will learn the concepts of sustainability, electronics wastes (e-wastes), and life cycles via the short lectures, in-class activities, and discussions. Students will also be able to differentiate basic electronic components via the hands-on activities of dissembling hard drives. 

Congying Wang is a doctoral candidate in the School of Materials Engineering at Purdue University. Her research interests include the stress-relaxation mechanisms in lead-free tin-alloy coatings in electronic devices and sustainable electronics such as the recycling of e-wastes within the circular economy framework.

The author of this resource was supported through the National Science Foundation-Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship: Sustainable Electronics Grant (NSF-IGERT, Grant Number 1144843).

Wang, C. Y., Dandridge, T., Cardella, M. E., & Handwerker, C. A. (2019). Integrating Sustainability Engineering Education and Design into the K-12 Classroom: A Case Study in Electronics Recycling for Middle-School Youth. Proceedings from ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings, Tampa, Florida. Retrieved from https://peer.asee.org/32227

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Wang, C. Y., Dandridge, T., Cardella, M. E., & Handwerker, C. A. (2019). Integrating Sustainability Engineering Education and Design into the K-12 Classroom: A Case Study in Electronics Recycling for Middle-School Youth. Proceedings from ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings, Tampa, Florida. Retrieved from https://peer.asee.org/32227

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• Congying Wang (2019), "K-12 Educational Module on Sustainability: What's Inside a Hard Drive?," https://nanohub.org/resources/30770.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. education/outreach
2. engineering education
3. high school
4. K-12
5. sustainability