Where Our Materials Come From

Lab Brief #5

🎯 Your mission

Master the concept. Use it tomorrow.

⚡ The twist

Nature loves to surprise the careful watcher.

What you'll learn

Every manufactured object begins as a mined, farmed or drilled raw material. Tracing a phone or a jumper back to its sources shows the real cost of a product, and it is the first step in deciding what to reuse rather than replace.

Key words

raw material
A natural substance used to manufacture something.
life cycle
The full path of a product from raw material to disposal.

Make a hypothesis first

Before you start: write down what you think will happen, and why.

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Think about what you just learned: say what "raw material" and "life cycle" mean in your own words before you start.

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Choose one object on your desk and trace it back to at least three raw materials and where each is obtained. Draw the life cycle as a flow diagram ending in reuse, recycling or landfill.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Record what actually happened, including anything that did not match what you expected.

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Write a conclusion that answers the question this lesson opened with, and state your uncertainty.

Question 1 of 2

A raw material is:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 2

A product life cycle ends in:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🔬 The more you look, the more nature shows you.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 2 right.

Next: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle — in That Order All lessons

🎯

Next Smart Experiment

We'll pick an experiment that matches exactly how you're thinking right now.

✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: This shows up in your everyday life more than you'd think.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Try one experiment in real life this week — even a tiny one.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “What's the most surprising thing you learned today?”

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