STSE energy and environmental trade-offs are at the heart of this Grade 12 Science resource for examining how scientific evidence, technology, society, and the environment shape real-world decisions. Using Alberta examples such as oil sands development and Calgary air quality, students evaluate competing priorities and consider how communities can make responsible choices when every option has benefits and costs.
Investigate the Decisions Behind Resource Management
The reading passage introduces the connections between science, technology, society, and the environment through energy production, transportation, land use, and government regulation. Students examine how Alberta’s oil sands contribute to employment and energy production while raising concerns about habitat disturbance, water use, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Calgary’s air quality provides another practical context for considering the effects of traffic, weather, and industrial activity. Students also explore how public transit and emission controls may help address pollution, why environmental technologies require evidence-based evaluation, and how historical policies and infrastructure decisions influence current resource management.
An important dimension of the resource is Indigenous land stewardship. Students consider why responsible decisions must respect Indigenous rights, recognise relationships between communities and their territories, and include appropriate participation rather than treating land solely as an economic asset.
Build Evidence-Based Decision-Making Skills
- Explain the relationships among scientific knowledge, technological choices, social values, and environmental effects.
- Evaluate economic benefits alongside habitat impacts, water use, greenhouse gas emissions, and air pollution.
- Assess why reliable evidence is necessary when comparing environmental technologies and their costs.
- Describe how government regulations, historical decisions, and infrastructure influence resource management.
- Explain the importance of Indigenous rights and participation in decisions about land.
- Consider how transparent evidence and ongoing monitoring support informed community decisions over time.
Students work through a reading passage, multiple-choice questions, true-or-false statements, short-answer responses, a labelled diagram activity, a categorisation activity, and a short-note task. These activities address both factual understanding and the reasoning needed to compare options, recognise trade-offs, and explain the consequences of decisions.
What Is Included?
- ✔️ Printable Grade 12 Science worksheet focused on STSE decisions and Alberta resource-management examples.
- ✔️ Separate PDF answer key for checking responses.
- ✔️ Student Notes lines at the bottom of the worksheet.
- ✔️ Teacher Guide inside the answer key PDF, with Learning Objectives, Teaching Tips, Discussion Questions, and Common Mistakes.
The answer key supports response checking, while the separate Teacher Guide offers guidance for lesson preparation, discussion, and addressing misconceptions. Students also have space to record key ideas in their notes.
Classroom Uses
Use this Science 30 resource when introducing STSE analysis, reviewing environmental decision-making, assigning independent practice, or preparing students to discuss resource-management scenarios. The Alberta contexts give students concrete issues to analyse instead of relying only on abstract definitions. Short-answer work can also help teachers assess how clearly students justify decisions using evidence and acknowledge competing interests.
Designed for Grade 12 Science and identified with the Alberta framework, this worksheet focuses on evaluating real-world trade-offs rather than assuming that one technology or policy removes every environmental and social concern. It provides a structured way to examine evidence, consider different perspectives, and practise responsible scientific reasoning.
