Design and Technology in Society and the Environment
What you must understand
Design does not occur in a vacuum. Candidates should be able to discuss how technology shapes and is shaped by society: employment, communication, health, accessibility and cultural values. Learn the idea of appropriate technology (solutions matched to local resources, skills and needs) and contrast it with technology push and market pull as drivers of new products.
Environmentally, you must understand life cycle thinking: raw material extraction, manufacture, distribution, use and disposal. Know the waste hierarchy (avoid, reduce, reuse, repair, recycle, recover, dispose) and be able to compare strategies. Understand planned obsolescence, embodied energy, carbon footprint, and design for disassembly. Distinguish renewable from non-renewable resources and give examples of each in a design context.
Social and legal considerations matter too: intellectual property, product stewardship, consumer protection, safety standards and equity of access. Be ready to discuss trade-offs honestly; no material or process is entirely without impact.
Traps
Questions often ask for evaluation of an environmental claim, not a description of recycling. Beware of vague statements like 'it is eco-friendly' with no evidence. Another trap is confusing recyclability with actual recycling rates, or assuming a natural material is automatically lower impact. Do not ignore social impacts when the question mentions stakeholders.
Worked example
A school replaces disposable plastic cups with reusable ones. Life cycle reasoning: manufacture has higher embodied energy, but over 500 uses the per-use impact falls below single-use cups. Rule of thumb: compare impacts per functional unit (per use, per year), never per product alone.