Discuss what types of materials are most important to recycle. Debate whether recycling should be made the law nationwide. Given the high quality and ready availability of substitutes, debate whether rare materials such as gold or diamonds should be used for jewelry and art or saved solely for technology and industry. Discuss how our global society would change if the technology to change one element into a different element were developed. One area of great advancement in materials science is the area of medicine.
Artificial joints are available, and scientists are currently developing artificial skin and blood.
Discuss whether there should be limits placed on the development of physiological substitutes. Many of the greatest advances in materials science have been made accidentally. In light of this, discuss the value of following the scientific method versus chance. The data sheet for this activity can be used as the evaluation. Each of the observations in the color, luster, malleability and conductivity columns can be assigned a value of one point.