Sustainability science fair project

Familiar with Wal-Marts scorecard for their vendors? Wal-Mart is trying to reduce their environmental footprint by encouraging their suppliers to reduce their packaging footprint. http://www.packagingdigest.com/article/CA6536405.html

A laudable goal.

I was at Wal-Mart last week and certainly noted (just like the shrink wrapped potatoes I mentioned in a prior blog post) the huge amount of packaging on all products.

A trend is towards individual servings and convenience foods. I saw a 'two pack' of eggs. Now realize that I'm not talking about two 1 dozen cartons of eggs packaged together but TWO eggs in a 2 egg egg-carton. Also apparently popular is a half-dozen egg carton.

This brings me to todays blog topic--science fair projects in sustainability.

In my day (my niece tells me I'm older then dirt) we got our science fair project ideas from Popular Mechanics or other mags of that ilk. Now students have a science fair project book that gives them step-by-step instructions on over a hundred science fair projects. Don't get me started about 'paint-by-number' experiments for students.....

So what about a sustainability science fair project? Here's one to which I don't have the outcome because the study needs to be done. I think this would be a great project for a student interested in applied math as well as a young tree-hugger with curiosity about balancing sustainability with market trends (yes a budding scientist with a bent for business).

SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT
Let's go back to the eggs example I mentioned. The premise is: packaging/product may not linear. This means that if one plots the weight of the packaging vs weight of the product, that graph might be parabolic and not linear. If that turns out to be the case (and realize I have no idea), there should be a sweet spot where packaging/product is at its minimum and hence represents the most sustainable option. And if it is linear then sustainability is independent of product amount packaging.

METHOD/ANALYSIS
Student should buy eggs starting with Costco multi-packs where the foam cartons are held together with shrink-wrap. Then head to Wal-Mart or the grocery store and by foam cartons of 2 doz egss, 18 eggs, 12 eggs, 6 eggs and 2 eggs. To get a true measure it is important that all eggs must be encased in Styrofoam (aka foam) since different packaging has different weights making it unable to correlate. With a postal scale or food scale that can measure light materials (like Styrofoam) the student should weigh the packaging and weigh the product and then plot packaging/product on a graph. If the scale is not sensitive enough, the student may need to consult with their HS chemistry teacher to use the more sensitive scales available in the chemistry lab. Once graphed it is up to the student to interpret the results: Is there a minimum where packaging/product is sustainable based on the consumer trend of not buying in bulk. The student may want to consult with a scientist to ensure that their interpretation makes sense. To do this it is best that the student have their analysis written down and provide it to the scientist/teacher for discussion.

A follow-on would be for the student to identify other foods (or other stuff) that is sold in various sizes (like cereals, rice, etc). In this case the packaging will probably be different depending on size/weight of product. Here it would be interesting to see if there is a break point in packaging/product. This could be discussed in terms of packaging made of paper (natural) or plastic (oil based). Lots of opportunity for students to think.

The key to any science project, if you are an adult teacher or parent, is to not tell the child what the answer should be but to pose questions that allow the child to think about the possibilities. Even if the child concludes 'wrong' it is their conclusion and they need to learn how to defend their conclusion whatever it may be.

Rosemarie