Educators are taking action
Educators realize that the complex problems of a modern world cannot be solved by any one academic discipline alone. They approach the grand challenges of our times through learning experiences that span across the disciplines, that address global themes in local contexts, that facilitate collaboration with community and industry partners, that encourage creativity, curiosity, and entrepreneurship to redesign the linear industrial model.
Educators engage learners as catalysts for change by 1) incorporating a circular design challenge into the curriculum, 2) by teaching systems thinking, 3) by teaching about natural law and the principles of biomimicry, and by encouraging learners to address global challenges in their local communities.
Rethinking progress
Ellen Mc Arthur Foundation video explaining the circular economy and how society can re-think progress.The role of climate change education
In a recent Brookings Institute policy brief titled Unleashing the creativity of teachers and students to combat climate change: An opportunity for global leadership (Kwauk & Winthrop, 2021), the authors explore the powerful effect that climate change education has on individual lifetime carbon emissions. Citing research by Cordero, Centeno & Todd (2020), the policy brief explains that
“if only 16 percent of high school students in high- and middle-income countries were to receive climate change education, we could see a nearly 19 gigaton reduction of carbon dioxide by 2050. When education helps students develop a strong personal connection to climate solutions, as well as a sense of personal agency and empowerment, it can have consequential impact on students’ daily behaviors and decision making that reduces their overall lifetime carbon footprint” (Kwauk & Winthrop, 2021).
Engaging students as catalysts for change
The Brookings Institute policy brief further argues that students moving through our education systems are a key group of catalysts who can be mobilized to learn, think, and act differently to impact the linear system. As the generation who will inherit the planet, learners are eager to become a part of the solution. The Brooking Report (2021) sets as its “audacious yet achievable goal” to incorporate climate action projects into the curriculum of every school by 2050!
Connecting the classroom to the world
Circular economy (CE) challenges exemplify the type of active learning activities and assessments (Reilly & Reeves, 2022) that foster learner agency, group creativity, empathy, design thinking, and applied problem solving. It provides learners with a real-world relevant purpose for learning, challenges them creatively to find solutions, and it promotes systems – and complexity thinking when framing a problem, conducting a stakeholder analysis, and grappling with social systems and behavior change.
reDesignED works with academic and industry partners ready to
- design transformative CE learning experiences for existing disciplinary courses,
- design new courses on a CE topic tailored to an academic program that set as their main challenge to make a CE contribution,
- revise or redesign existing programs so that the theme of circularity and ecosystem restoration is woven throughout the curriculum,
- design new programs on the topic of circularity and/or ecosystem restoration.
Join the network of institutions who are incorporating circularity into their classrooms. Connect your academic content with a real-world challenges and watch young minds collaborate, ideate, and design a more sustainable future.