Minds On
Exploring batteries
Batteries are a very useful invention that provide portable electricity to power many different items and devices.
Brainstorm
Battery-powered items
How many different products can you think of that exist today that use batteries to work?
Make a list using a method of your choice, such as on paper, digitally, or using an audio recording. If possible, share your thinking with a partner.
Explore the following images to help get you started on creating your list of battery-powered items.
Remote controls
Many devices, like TVs, use remote controls that are battery-operated to power them on and off.
Charging tech devices
Portable devices like smartphones, tablets and laptop computers have batteries that need to be charged to keep them running.
Fixing a toy car
Toy cars need batteries to power them and their remote controls.
EV charging
Electric vehicles get their power from a rechargeable car battery.
Action
Innovation in Canada
This learning activity features emerging technologies, STEM contributions, and Canadian innovations that are making a difference.
How are batteries made?
Batteries are a portable source of electric power.
The container or battery stores energy inside, and has chemicals and metals inside of it that react to create electrical energy when the battery is being used.
An electric device uses the battery as a source of energy and then performs functions. For example, a flashlight uses batteries as a source of energy to perform the function of shining a light.
So, what is inside a battery that makes it successful as a source of energy?
There are two types of batteries. Press the following tabs to access more information about each type of battery.
Primary batteries are also called alkaline batteries. These are batteries such as the AA or AAA batteries that are used for items such as a TV remote, flashlight, or toys.
Alkaline batteries use minerals that are extracted (taken from) the land, such as manganese dioxide, graphite, and zinc.
These batteries can be used until the minerals inside them are no longer producing energy, and then they must be replaced.
Secondary batteries can be recharged using an electric current.
Most products that have rechargeable batteries use a mineral called lithium. Some examples of products that include lithium batteries that can be recharged are:
- smartphones
- tablets/laptops
- electric cars
- and much more
Similar to the other minerals found in batteries, lithium is extracted from the land through mining.
Pause and Reflect
Primary and secondary batteries
What is one similarity and one difference between primary and secondary batteries?
Record your answer using a method of your choice.
Batteries are made of minerals
The Earth is made up of thousands of different minerals. Batteries are made up of many different minerals from the Earth.
Minerals are substances that are solid, are found in nature, and don’t come from living things. They can either be made from one type of element or from different elements combined together. So, where do the minerals for batteries usually come from?
We most often get minerals by mining them!
Press ‘Definition’ to access an explanation of the term mining.
Mining is the process of getting useful, and often valuable, materials from the ground and the sea.
Check out this video clip to learn more about minerals.
What is something new that you learned from this video? Record your thinking using a method of your choice.
Did You Know?
Canadian contribution: an energized invention
Lewis Urry, Canadian co-inventor of the alkaline battery.
The invention of the long-lasting alkaline battery was due in part to a Canadian chemical engineer and inventor named Lewis Urry. Urry was born in Pontypool, Ontario.
While working for the Eveready Battery Company, Urry, along with co-inventor Austrian chemist Karl Kordesch, used two minerals, manganese and zinc, to develop the alkaline battery as it is known today.
Both minerals are mined in Canada today.
Urry’s innovation helped make useful items in people’s lives, like flashlights, portable, so that they could continue to use them wherever they were located.
Along with batteries, minerals are found throughout many items that people use every day. For example, a computer contains a microprocessor made of silicon, and computer drives are made of various metals, all of which might be encased in aluminum. These materials originally started in the Earth as minerals and were mined and processed to make different products.
Explore this video clip from Science North to learn more about some common minerals, some of which are mined in Ontario!
Check your understanding!
Can you identify the mineral and one of its uses? Give it a try by completing the following activity!
For each sentence, select the missing word from the drop-down menu.
Brainstorm
Minerals in everyday items
Do you know of any other common, everyday items that consist of minerals?
Record your ideas using a method of your choice, such as on paper, digitally, or with an audio recording.
Environmental and social impacts
Minerals are used to make many common, everyday items, including batteries. New sources of minerals are constantly being made every day through the rock cycle; however, the process takes a very long time. Because the cycle takes so long, minerals are considered a non-renewable resource that is being used (or extracted) faster than it can regenerate.
Press ‘Definition’ to access an explanation of the term non-renewable resource.
Non-renewable resource: a natural resource that cannot be replaced after it is used.
While batteries are essential to power many everyday items, there are downsides to their creation and use. Extracting minerals for manufacturing, including to make batteries, can cause short and long-term impacts to society and the environment.
Let’s begin by exploring the following images of mineral mines to help brainstorm how you think a mine may impact the local people and the environment.
Record your thinking using a method of your choice.
Lithium pools and mines in Chile.
An open pit copper mine in Zambia.
Salt pans and flats outside a small village in the Canary Islands, Spain.
An open pit mine in North Chile.
Underground salt mine in Sicily, Italy.
There are both social and environmental impacts of extracting minerals through mining, such as the ones used for both primary and secondary batteries.
Let’s investigate some of the social and environmental impacts. Before beginning, check out this video to learn about the steps of the Scientific Research Process. For this activity, you will focus on the skills of asking, learning, and recording.
As you investigate, record some notes on the information you discover using a method of your choice.
You may choose to complete the Impacts of Mining graphic organizer in your notebook or using the following fillable and printable document. If you would like, you can use speech-to-text or audio recording tools to record your thoughts.
Press the following tabs to access information to conduct your investigation on some of the impacts of mining.
Mining for minerals, including those used in batteries, is dangerous work. Some mines are created underground to find specific metals. If a tunnel caves in, miners can be trapped underground or seriously injured. As miners work underground, they are exposed to harmful gases and rock dust that can affect their overall health, especially if they are exposed over long periods of time.
While mining can create jobs for local residents, they are not always long-lasting jobs, and they are very risky. Sometimes, communities come to rely on the income that is made from mines, and then the mine will close. If a mine is not closed properly, they can become dangerous for people who trespass to try and explore them.
When a mine is opened, some people in the communities, such as farmers or Indigenous community members, are displaced from the land by the location of the mine.
Lastly, because minerals (especially rare ones) are worth money, there can sometimes be conflict between multiple people who are interested in extracting and selling the minerals.
The extraction of minerals produces pollution in the air, land, and water that harms the natural environment. As rocks and minerals are unearthed, moved, and crushed during extraction, there is an increase in the amount of dust particles and harmful toxins that are released into the air. Chemicals and waste from mines can seep into streams, rivers, and groundwater, which is called “acid mine drainage”. This makes water unsafe for drinking and contaminates water for marine and shore communities. These pollutants also seep into the ground, contaminating the soil.
Digging and blasting tunnels can also harm the natural habitat of plants and animals. Animals and other species are forced to relocate. The increase of pollution in the air, water, and soil is also harmful to local animals.
To create mining sites, the land gets dug up and changed from its natural state. If the mine closes, this means that the land is often no longer ideal as a habitat for living things.
When batteries are no longer useful, they need to be disposed of properly. When a battery is simply thrown in the garbage and not disposed of properly, this can negatively impact the environment as well. Batteries can leak heavy minerals, such as lithium and nickel, that contaminate soils, groundwater, and streams. Batteries also release toxic gases into the atmosphere, which contribute to climate change, and can have harmful effects on humans.
Press ‘Hint’ to access some information to help create your notes.
Some impacts of mining
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Impacts on the environment |
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Pause and Reflect
Let’s reflect…
How do you think a local community member might be impacted by the opening of a mine in their community to extract minerals to make batteries?
Record your thinking using a method of your choice.
Reducing impacts
Now that you’ve explored the harmful social and environmental impacts of batteries and extracting minerals to make them, let’s explore some ways that humans can help reduce these impacts while still benefitting from the use of the materials. In the previous section, you learned that batteries are often disposed of incorrectly, which can lead to the leaking of heavy minerals into the soil and water, as well as toxins released into the air. It is important that batteries are properly disposed of.
Check out this video clip from Science North to learn more about how to properly recycle batteries.
Check your understanding of the information discussed in the video by answering the following questions using a method of your choice, such as on paper, digitally, or with an audio recording.
- Why should we recycle batteries?
- What can the components of a battery be used for?
- What can people do with old batteries?
Press ‘Hint’ to access some information to help you answer the questions.
Batteries should be recycled because they are made up of materials that can be reused. For example, the steel can be extracted and reused in other applications, rather than taking them from raw materials again. Other minerals (zinc, potassium, etc.) can be recycled into other objects to prevent extracting more resources from the Earth. Papers and plastics can be recycled and used to produce energy. By recycling batteries, we keep them out of landfills and prevent the heavy minerals from seeping into soil and groundwater.
People can take old batteries to drop stations, such as the one at Science North. Before you drop them off, you should tape over the positive terminals to prevent short circuiting in a bin full of batteries.
Extend your learning by investigating how your local community disposes of batteries and/or electronics. If you needed to dispose of a battery or electronic, where could you take it? Are there any other rules you need to follow? Record your ideas in a method of your choice.
Consolidation
Connecting our learning
Choose one of the following task options to complete using information you have learned throughout this learning activity.
Press the following tabs to access explanations of the two different options to choose from.
You have been invited to a town hall meeting to discuss the possibility of extracting minerals to make batteries in a local community. Using a method of your choice, present the advantages and disadvantages of extracting minerals to produce batteries in the town, and advise the members at the meeting as to what they should do. Be sure to consider:
- the social impacts of extracting minerals
- the environmental impacts of extracting minerals
- the disposal of old batteries
- different perspectives on the issue (i.e., community member, business owner, environmentalist, etc.)
Your school is holding an assembly about the production and disposal of batteries. Using a method of your choice, share information with a class on the different types of batteries and how they can be properly disposed of once finished with. Be sure to explain the environmental impacts if the batteries are not disposed of properly.
You might choose to present your information using one of the following options, or with another method of your choice:
- a poster
- a slideshow of information
- an infographic
- a story
- a speech
When you are preparing your work, be sure to consider the following:
Have I…
Reflection
As you read through these descriptions, which sentence best describes how you are feeling about your understanding of this learning activity? Press the button that is beside this sentence.
I feel…
Now, record your ideas using a voice recorder, speech-to-text, or writing tool.