This lesson is designed for the NEW AQA Trilogy Chemistry GCSE, particularly the 'Earth’s Resources’ SoW.
 
This lesson starts with an introduction to a Life Cycle Assessment, what it is, how it is carried out and the reasons behind conducting them. Next, pupils will watch a video on the process and importance of carrying out an LCA - pupils can answer a set of questions whilst watching this and when finished they can self-assess their work using the mark scheme provided.
 
Pupils are then shown a diagram which outlines the input and output of an LCA, including all of the processes which occur in between.
Pupils will now consider the overall environmental impact of the production of a paper bag compared to the production of a carrier bag. Pupils can discuss their ideas of which may make the larger impact on the environment. Next, pupils will be given a set of information about the extraction of raw materials, manufacture, use and reuse and disposal of these two bags - using this information they will need to conduct an LCA for each bag. To do this they have been provided with a table to fill in, for each factor they will need to score the environmental impact from 1-10. At the end they will have a score out of 40, the higher the score the larger the environmental impact.
 
The last part of the lesson requires pupils to consider the problems of conducting a life cycle assessment, they can mind map their ideas as a pair and then share as part of a class discussion. The teacher can then reveal some of the issues with LCA’s, pupils can check their work against these answers.
 
The plenary task is for pupils to write three quiz questions to test their peers knowledge of what they have learned this lesson.