Using the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module in Global Climate Change

Stacy Porter, Wittenberg University

Course Description

This course is designed for science and non-science majors and will provide a more thorough understanding of the scientific basis of both natural and anthropogenic (human-produced) climate and environmental changes. You will explore the key issues surrounding 20th century climate change (popularly called global warming) and the role of human activities in shaping the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the environment that sustain life on Earth. Through readings, lectures, class activities, discussions, student presentations, and class debates you will gain insight on how these anticipated changes are likely to affect your future and explore actions by which you may contribute to solutions. You will gain experience using peer-reviewed literature to research a topic and then summarize and present your findings both orally and in writing. A key objective is to provide you with the knowledge base and skills to critically evaluate information you encounter concerning climate change and related environmental issues.

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

The course is 3 50-minute sessions per week for 14 weeks. The first half of the course details the evidence for and science of climate change. The latter half of the course focuses on climate solutions including this module. Prior to the module, we were exploring energy on the planet and how we power the human enterprise. Students considered fuel mix and greenhouse gas emissions when working through the process map for a t-shirt. We worked on a t-shirt because of the toll of fast fashion on the environment. A week or so after this module, students gave presentations on various climate solutions and were encouraged to think in that cradle-to-grave mindset for their solutions. For instance, how can we recycle solar panels and turbines or what materials go into EV batteries.

Integrating the Module into Your Course

This course is a global climate change, which is an environmental science course. So for the first part of the semester, we go through the impacts of climate change, the evidence for climate change, and really sort of the bad hard stuff. Then the latter half of the semester, we move towards the solutions.

So this module was a really great transition into thinking about the problem and exploring the solutions on that end, and so carrying that solution-oriented lens throughout the rest of the semester. So I incorporated in about halfway through our course, and it fit in very nicely. We were exploring energy for the planet and all of the different sectors where we emit a lot of greenhouse gases, including industry.

And so that segued into let's think about fast fashion and then let's explore what actually all goes into just creating the humble T-shirt. And that led us to sort of this, once they did that processing map, looking at the steps going into a T-shirt, and having that realization of there's so much when you think about this sort of cradle-to-grave lifecycle of just this one product that later, about a week or so later, they were doing presentations focusing on those different sectors like transportation, renewable energies, agriculture, those types of things.

And again, using that sort of cradle-to-grave lens of what all goes into a solar panel, what all goes into an electric vehicle battery, that we have solutions to climate change, but they're by no means perfect solutions. So what are the pros and the cons, and how can we try to mitigate the impacts all along the way.

What Worked Well

The overall concept of understanding a circular economy versus a linear economy, the students seem to grasp really well, and I mentioned it was really great to see them have these aha moments of just realizing how much actually goes into making these products that you just don't think about in our consumer mindset. You just buy, you wear, you throw, you don't care.

And it was really neat to see them sort of be like, "Oh, this is a lot. This is at every step of the process. There's so much waste and there's so many things that we could do differently." So that was the overall concept, I think, worked splendidly and it fit very well into the course.

So it felt like a very smooth transition and it helped make that transition of focusing on the problem to then moving towards the solution side. So it was a great bridge for that.

Challenges and How They Were Addressed

The biggest challenge was probably just my prior lack of knowledge. I don't often think about economies. I of course think about reducing waste, but the economy mindset was a little bit, I know the basics of a circular economy, but digging deeper down into it, I'm lacking there. And so in hindsight, I wish I had prepped a little bit more and learned a little bit more about circular economy so I could sort of help along the way. And even I didn't know all the stuff that goes into making a T-shirt.

So really most of the challenge was just bringing myself up to speed. And there were lots of great resources on the website as well. But given time constraints, I looked, but I probably should have done a deeper dive into that. But otherwise, I think the students probably took away the same that I was learning as I was going through and sort of skimming all these articles and trying to put this together. But in the future, I would do more prep and then try to get in deeper with them as well.

Overall, they seem to grasp the main concept of what we do tends to generate a lot of waste. And if we're thinking about things sustainably relating them to those UN sustainable development goals, we've got issues in how we do things and the status quo isn't going to continue. It just can't.

So one of the things we explore in the class is that population is not the problem when it comes to climate change. It often gets billed that way, but it's really about what we use and how we consume.

And so showing them everything that goes into just a T-shirt and having that aha moment of, okay, this is quite a lot, and you think this is why this is unsustainable, that we buy so much of this stuff and it takes so much to create this thing that if we could streamline this process, we'd be making much less of an impact.

Student Response to the Module and Activities

So that I think they latched on to it to really well. In the assessment, which I did just kind of a small quiz after, and they were thinking about this idea of a circular economy. They could explain it pretty well, but it did seem that they were sort of harping on with, in terms of reducing waste, they were looking more at that disposal step and not as much through each step of the process.

And again, I put that to my own flaw there in teaching it and that I would focus on that a little bit more, that on every step of the process there are things that you can reduce, so by the end of it, you're generating less waste in general that you have to recycle or landfill if you streamline that process all across the board.

But overall, I think they got the big picture, which I am thankful for. The smaller details, again, I think it was just my lack of understanding and then my lack of communicating that to them. But overwhelmingly, I think they did really well with it.