Using the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module in Nature in Society: Environmental Social Sciences and Humanities

Emily McKee, Northern Illinois University

Course Description

Examination of how the social sciences and humanities contribute to our understanding of contemporary environmental problems and our efforts to solve them. Focus on how human communities and institutions respond to and serve as agents of environmental change. Practice in effective communication about environmental challenges.

Explore the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module »

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

The course is one semester, with 15 weeks of instructional time, and the module was used in weeks 11 and 12. Students had already been introduced to the notion of wicked problems (in our discussions of climate change) and advice on tackling wicked problems, as well as environmental justice and equity. Following the module, the final unit on sustainable food systems drew on the module's discussion of economic phases and of linear and circular models.

Integrating the Module into Your Course

I did the wicked problem of an equitable zero waste circular economy. And this was within an introductory environmental studies course focused on humanities and social sciences. So this came toward the end of the semester after we had already introduced the idea of wicked problems in the context of climate change. Then we did this unit and then the module after this module was on sustainable food systems. So, it built really well that way into using the knowledge that the students had gained in the common module to then talk in more depth. We did in-class discussions for our course specific activity, on how to address persistent problems in the industrial food system. So, they were able to use the knowledge they build about systems, the intricacies of tweaking one thing here and pulling threads all over here in terms of trying to substitute out, for example, meat and trying to do things like insect raising instead. So (introducing) different ideas like that for tweaking some of those problems.

What Worked Well

It was an easy fit for this particular course. It just was a natural (fit). The concepts that it covered were things I wanted to cover anyway so it was really useful that way in terms of what worked really well for the way that the modules organized the waste audit worked really well, as long as students got enough advanced notice and a couple of reminders, the participation was really high in that. And then in class discussion was really rich. There were a lot of students who had these "aha" moments about "I didn't realize how much I used." And the gallery walk also worked really well. I think it encouraged students to go both deep and broad. So working with other students, they were looking up all these details about their particular stage of the t-shirt industry, but then they also got to see the big picture because they saw what all of their classmates had done with those details as well. So the depth and the breadth both worked really well for that. And it was a really great opportunity for students to show some creativity. A few students were intimidated by the idea of making a poster a bit, but a few really shown in that sense. So, they really liked it.

Challenges and How They Were Addressed

The biggest challenge was carving out enough time for the module. I ran it twice. I ran it online one semester and in person the other. So it wasn't as easy to just tweak a couple things, changing both modality as well as timing. But I tried to help by giving students some in-class time, a second time around to work together in the groups to map out the t-shirt lifecycle and then to use the rest as homework time. Some teams did really well with that, while others found it difficult to coordinate even part of it remotely outside of class. So to be honest, I'm still working on how best to fit the schedule in, but I'm not entirely sure what the best solution is but I think it's worth it, because the students really do get a lot out of the module. So I just need to figure out the timing and maybe giving the assignment even a little bit earlier. Changing the order of things a little bit so they have some more out of class time.

Student Response to the Module and Activities

First of all they (the students) reported finding the module really engaging. They really liked it. And as I mentioned, they had a lot of aha moments around the waste audit of their own consumption. But I think they also really did get more about the intricacies of trade-offs involved in changing a complex system. And so one of my goals with this class is to help students deal with the discomfort of living in a non-black and white world, right? There are gray areas and there are no simple answers and you can't just get the right answer and then apply it. So giving them some tools to deal with that and not just then shut off, right? The answer is not to just disengage, but to engage with that messiness. And so I think this helped them do that.