The Future of Education

As technology evolves and companies launch new devices to the market, society is constantly prompted to purchase the latest releases. Due to this shopping frenzy, people tend to buy more than they need and more than 350,000 phones are wasted every day. In this study, it is aimed to recycle the copper metal in waste cell phones and to precipitate the phosphate ions in contaminated waters using the recycled copper. This contributes to the conservation of biodiversity in aquatic life by eliminating the possibility of eutrophication. Eutrophication is the excessive growth of plants and algae due to the presence of overly enriched chemical constituents in water, and phosphate ion (PO4-3 ) is one of its most important contributors. As former AP Chemistry and current Advanced Chemistry students, we are aware of the threats eutrophication poses to aquatic life, such as depleting underwater oxygen levels and creating death zones. We consider addressing this issue, our responsibility as young about-to-be engineers. The results of the experiment showed a significant decrease in PO4-3 ion concentrations after the usage of copper that is extracted from the waste mobile phones. With this project, we take an active role in preserving our environment and in order to do that we want to recycle mobile phones, remove phosphate from water and provide aquatic organisms with a safe and livable environment. Teaching students to solve real-life problems with the aforementioned experiment, which includes the analysis of various curves and graphs and the effective usage of spectrophotometers, is an innovative and active way of learning the theoretical applications of environmental and chemical sciences. With this type of active learning, students will achieve a better understanding of global concepts while getting familiar with experimental procedures.