Blog #4: Electronic waste
It is not uncommon to run recycling programs in schools, encouraging students to collect plastic bags, bottles or cans. We spend a lot of time talking about the environmental impact of garbage and discussing with students how they can lessen their footprint on the world. We encourage students to be good citizens and be respectful to each other and their environment, but do we ever talk to them about the environmental impact of their technology use? I remember in my first few years of school doing basic research projects using dictionaries and encyclopedias. By grade three my school list included floppy disks and I could tell my teachers were uncomfortable with using the computers. Often times they would save our projects for us rather than show us how. I remember being taken out of class in groups and sat in front of computers while the TA read from a script, "click this icon 2 times to open up the internet." By the time I was in 6th grade ...