Teach kids science by inspiring change in common realities

Some things just become so much a part of our lives that we fail to envision anything that is different.  Changing these things is difficult if no one is thinking about alternatives.  Part of our push to interest students in science should include highlighting things that have become extremely widespread yet are unsustainable and how science must provide an alternative.

The most obvious example of this is fossil fuel use.  While there is a multitude of ways we use fossil fuels, and there are many alternatives being developed for many uses, there is one that I hear little about.  That is asphalt.  For over a hundred years, paving of road surfaces with asphalt (actually a mix of asphalt and "aggregate") has become not only common, but ubiquitous.  The fact that asphalt is the most recycled product in the world is counter to, but critical to, the point that I would like to make.  It is the repaving of roads and recycling of asphalt that uses a lot of fossil fuel.  The process of recycling requires grinding the old failed road surface, loading and hauling the ground asphalt to the processing plant where it must be heated to a high temperature to be recycled, loaded and hauled to its new location, where it must be loaded into a paving machine to be laid, followed by rolling.  Road bed preparation and other incidentals add to the energy consumption in the repaving process.

So, what is my point?  Well, like most things, this situation is perpetuated by inertia.  It is what it is, and if we think of it at all, we think that this is how it always will be.  But why?  Because no one has thought of a realistic, scalable alternative.  Yet.  Do you think we will be repaving our roads in the same way, more or less, in two hundred years?  Will we have repaved the same roads the same way on a cycle of every 10-20 years (or whatever), time and time again?  I hope not.  So we should be looking for the next alternative now and until it it developed.

Our children should be inspired to see that science has the potential to change our world.  Questioning common realities, and searching for better alternatives should be part of our educational goals.  Inspiration from changes that have already been made should bolster that challenge.  Asphalt is just one example of a common reality that could be changed.  There is no limit to what other seemingly permanent fixtures of our culture that could be changed for the better.