Using the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module in Mental Health Practice

Stephanie Little, Wittenberg University

Course Description

Laboratory course examining the scientific basis and application of assessment (e.g., cognitive ability, personality) and intervention techniques (e.g., behavioral, cognitive) within the mental health field.

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Relationship of the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module to Your Course

The course is one semester long (14 weeks of class plus finals week). The common exercise module was positioned at the very start of the term. We continued to utilize the idea of wicked problems throughout the course when discussing the challenges of defining, assessing, and treating mental illness.

Integrating the Module into Your Course

I implemented the module and the course-specific exercise, which was mostly embedded throughout the common module, during the first and third classes and first two lab sessions. The students were assigned to complete the waste audit prior to the first day. During the first class session, I passed out to the students clean, Wittenberg face masks from the required masking phase of the COVID-19 pandemic along with permanent markers and asked them to write on the back of the mask at least one way the pandemic had affected their mental health; these effects were then shared with the class as part of the introductions. Then, at the start of the first lab period, we re-visited the effects of the pandemic on mental health and discussed other impacts on mental health, such as school stress, physical illness, peer pressure and much more. As students shared these various effects, I put them on the board and had them discuss connections among them (e.g., peer pressure to drink affects physical and mental health). If students did not bring it up, I asked them if they thought climate change impacted mental health (which, they did). I used this exercise to introduce the idea of wicked problems and the fact that mental health and climate change are both wicked problems that are connected. Throughout the rest of the first lab period, we worked through the common module, which I had slightly re-ordered and embedded with connections to mental health in places; for example, we discussed how climate change and linear economies were connected and how both had impacts on mental health. This lab included an adapted version of the gallery tour which also provided a basis for the final essay. Students worked on drafts of the essay the last class period of the first week of class and the final essay was due the following week. For the second lab period, students were assigned to read and answer discussion questions about one of two articles about climate change and mental health. During lab, students worked in groups with other students who read the same article to create a PowerPoint to share the key points of the research with the other students in lab who had not read that article. This exercise served to help students further see the connection between climate change and mental health and gain skill in reading and communicating research relevant to the course topic.

What Worked Well

The module worked very well for getting students to see mental health, as well as other societal challenges, as wicked problems and the importance of systems thinking. Putting this at the start of the semester helped broaden students' thinking regarding other course topics; for example, they were better able to consider multiple ways to assess mental health or design treatment plans for cases.

Challenges and How They Were Addressed

The biggest challenge for me was simply connecting the module to my course. I addressed this challenge by embedding connections to mental health throughout the common module. For instance, I added a question to the waste audit that asked students to reflect on how completing the audit impacted their mental health/well-being (e.g., mood). I also explicitly required them to include mental health within the health equity aspect of the gallery tour exercise and final essay.

Student Response to the Module and Activities

Students were generally very open to the module despite it not being something they thought would be part of a course about mental health. The first year I implemented the module, the main student complaint was about the amount of time the module took as they saw it as taking away from the main course material, which for most of the students is relevant to their future careers in the mental health field. Thus, I spent a lot of time streamlining the common module material and integrating mental health more throughout it before implementing it the second year. Both years, the students were particularly animated when discussing their waste audits and the general lack of recycling and composting on campus and their home communities. Seeing the amount of waste via their audits definitely did not have a positive impact on their mental health; some noted no effect, but others indicated a clear, albeit generally small, negative impact. I think the waste audit and initial exercise with the masks (second year only) facilitated discussion throughout the module and course-specific exercise; students were very open to discussing the connections among waste, climate change, linear versus circular economies, and mental health. The videos included in the common module also sparked quite a bit of discussion.