The Tikkun Project
Lesson
1
Is it Worth It?
Concept
Every product has both benefits and harms deciding which outweighs the other requires explicit, tested criteria, not just a gut reaction.
Focus Question
How much waste or harm from our use of everyday products and materials is acceptable?
Knowledge & Understanding Goals
Science and Technology, Matter and Energy Strand C (Pure Substances and Mixtures), Grade 7: Analyse the social and environmental impacts of the use and disposal of pure substances. (C1.1)
Thinking & Learning Skills
ATL — Thinking Skills: Generating and testing evaluative criteria through direct comparison across multiple examples; revising a stated position in light of new evidence.
Learner Profile: Thinkers, Balanced.
Context
Launch lesson for the unit establishes the Critical Challenge, the Challenge Criteria, and the initial criteria bank ("beneficial if..." / "harmful if...") that every later lesson will refine and eventually apply to each student's own chosen product. Also introduces the Dashboard dial as the unit's central recurring tool.
Lesson Outline
INTRODUCING THE CRITICAL CHALLENGE
Explain that in this unit, each student will choose and research a product, process, or material, and create a plan or action designed to reduce its potential harms while maintaining an important benefit. An effective action or plan: demonstrates a comprehensive understanding of the product's potential harms and benefits; has a well-defined, measurable, anticipated outcome (e.g., reduce waste by 10%); is feasible for students to implement. Actions can take several forms: changing personal behaviour, raising awareness (PSAs, petitions, advocacy campaigns), creative innovation (redesigning a product or prototyping an alternative), or social entrepreneurship (a business model that reduces potential harm).
TAKING A FIRST POSITION
Show students an item with a clear function and an obvious possibility of causing harm. Ask them to pick a side of the room reflecting their belief about whether the item's benefits or harms are greater. In groups, students complete a T-chart recording the benefits and harms they already know or believe, then suggest the criteria implied by their own list ("we'd say something is beneficial if...", "harmful if..."). Using those criteria, groups place the item on the Dashboard dial and select the three benefits or harms that most compellingly support their position. Groups present their conclusions.
REVISING OUR POSITION
After presenting, ask if anyone wants to change their position on the item, and why. Document all suggested criteria on a shared, ongoing list. Repeat the process with one or two additional items, tracking which criteria get suggested again for a different item and which are only ever used once — this running tally becomes the raw material for identifying which criteria actually generalize.
MEETING THE CORE TEXT
Introduce Bal Tashchit via Sefer HaChinuch 529: "Righteous people do not waste in this world even a mustard seed. They become sorrowful with every wasteful and destructive act they see, and if they can, they use all their strength to save everything possible from destruction." Ask: does this text suggest a new criterion the class hasn't already named, or does it reinforce one already on the list? Where would this text's standard place our discussed items on the Dashboard dial?
IDENTIFYING THE MOST EFFECTIVE CRITERIA
As a whole class, review the full criteria list generated across all discussed items and discuss which criteria held up across more than one product — these are stronger candidates for the unit's working definition than any single-item criterion. Converge toward strong examples: beneficial if it solves an important problem, improves quality of life, has a positive/reliable/long-lasting impact, and is accessible and inclusive; harmful if it's detrimental to the well-being of individuals, society, or the environment, is cruel, destructive, or unfair, or has long-lasting impacts that are difficult to repair.
WRAP-UP
Exit ticket: students select what they believe is the single best criterion for "beneficial" and the single best for "harmful," and explain why.
Notes for Teaching and Evaluation
The Dashboard dial gives students a shared, visual, revisitable anchor for what would otherwise be a purely qualitative judgment — repeating it across the unit makes a genuine shift in position visible rather than just claimed.
Tracking which criteria recur across multiple items (versus appearing only once) teaches the same underlying habit used elsewhere in the Tikkun curriculum — a criterion validated across several independent cases is more trustworthy than one built from a single example.
Introducing Bal Tashchit only after students have generated their own criteria, not before, means the text tests and enriches independent student thinking rather than pre-determining it.