The national curriculum often focuses on how technology is a benefit to our lives as a society - we create new programs and machines to solve problems that we have identified. It also covers the dangers that technology has on our personal lives, such as staying safe with the seemingly never-ending development of social media. However, the curriculum avoids going into detail about the negative aspects that constant development of technology has on the physical world, especially in areas such as Africa. The largest problem that affects the developing world would be that of e-waste (electronic waste). E-waste can be defined as "electrical or electronic equipment that has been discarded," according to this website dedicated to information about e-waste.
Introducing the Issue
There are many reasons that e-waste represents a large issue with technology, including human-related and environmental damage. With the disappointing issue of "planned obsolescence" now becoming more commonplace, we are digging up more materials overtime to continue to supply manufacturers so that new devices can be created in their place. This tears apart the environment and contributes to issues such as global warming. This guardian article on the topic of planned obsolescence describes the issue in good detail. There are some workarounds to the issue of digging new materials, such as recycling old devices by sending them to specific areas specifically enabled to deal with e-waste. However, this is not how the majority of materials are dealt with. Instead, e-waste is often contained to large dump sites that are filtered through by people looking for scraps to sell off to potential buyers, as well as lying on land that was previously open space.
These dumps are filled with devices that contain toxic materials such as lead, cadmium, and mercury. These substances can infect the lungs and skin of people that come into contact with it, but they can also seep deep into the ground below the landfills and permeate nearby sources of water. This leads to health issues in the long run and the greater the amount of waste, the stronger the number of toxic materials. This can be seen in greatest detail at the Ghanaian site of Agbogbloshie (also known as Sodom). A huge landfill completely covered in e-waste, Sodom has many residents who have their own marketing hierarchy - the lowest jobs include searching for wire and burning the rubber off to obtain the copper inside, whereas the richest people find themselves holding onto items that have sustained little damage (such as TVs, computers, tablets, etc.) which they then sell on for a good profit.
This Bloomberg article covers the various aspects of Agbogbloshie quite well.
Implementing in the Classroom
So how can we include these issues in lessons to teach our students of the dangers? The first step could be inviting them to propose their own ideas on the issues of technology. You could then introduce them to the idea of planned obsolescence and the problems that this can lead to, either by directly discussing e-waste or also bringing up the financial implications of devices that have a somewhat defined end-of-use date. Depending on the students, it may also be helpful to show them (or guide them to)
this documentary on the life of a wire-burner in Sodom. This way, the students can visualise the issues of e-waste in a profound way, and reference it in an exam should a long-answer question based on impact of technology appear.
Any year group could be introduced to this issue; however I would recommend aiming the lesson at KS4/KS5 as the students would be more able to discuss the impacts of, and solutions to, e-waste.
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