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Teaching circular economy for Sustainable Development

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Teaching circular economy for Sustainable Development

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

INTRODUCTION

DIDACTICAL APPROACH

WHAT IS CIRCULAR ECONOMY?

WHY CIRCULAR ECONOMY EDUCATION IS VALUABLE FOR VET

SUBJECTS IN WHICH YOU CAN TEACH CIRCULAR ECONOMY

LEARNING TOPICS FOR EDUCATION FOR A CIRCULAR ECONOMY

NINE-STEPS-APPROACH AND TEACHING STRATEGIES FOR EDUCATION FOR A CIRCULAR ECONOMY

CONCLUSION

1. INTRODUCTION

This mini course provides educators with a structured approach to teach and promote circular economy principles in the context of sustainable development. The course is designed to help teachers engage students in critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making processes related to circular economy concepts. It consists of nine steps that guide the teaching and learning process, including analysis, explore, research, analyze, value, solve, design, present, and reflect.

2. DIDACTICAL APPROACH

This mini course describes a didactical approach for education for a circular economy. The basic idea is, that education for a circular economy aims to develop certain learners’ competencies: systems thinking, multiperspective thinking and designing. The didactical approach describes didactical requirements and teaching strategies within a nine-steps-model. This didactical model is the result of the Erasmus+ project ThreeC and was based on a desk research and interviews with circular economy experts. The didactical ideas were applied in various pilot projects in 2015/2016 and fine-tuned afterwards.

3. CIRCULAR ECONOMY

The circular economy is a sustainability-concept that is embraced by an increasing number of decision makers and companies, like Mud Jeans or Interface, but also multinationals like Philips or Unilever. The main idea is, to ensure the re-usage of resources, in a way that products are made to be made again. The circular economy reacts on the most urgent questions of mankind, like depletion of resources, pollution, inequalities and climate change. A society that represents a circular economy, requires other knowledge, skills and attitudes, compared to our current society. The circular economy is an integrated and innovative management approach, where for instance systems thinking and inclusivity are more important, besides regular entrepreneurial competencies. This mini course supports European teachers with an innovative didactical concept, based on a competence oriented learning approach to create and foster those competencies amongst their students.

3. CIRCULAR ECONOMY - PRODUCER SIDE

The basic principle of a circular economy is, that products are designed to be re-used, so waste doesn’t exist (see figure 1). “Using the ‘Nature as teacher’ framework of thinking, industrial products and systems are designed and developed to mimic Nature. They are driven mainly by renewable energy sources and mimic the closed loops of natural ecosystems. Industrial products are designed in what is called a ‘cradle to cradle’ process. What end products cannot be composted (e.g. metals) go back to industry in a closed loop - as a valuable, easy to manage ‘nutrient’.” (Webster and Johnson, 2008; pp. 16). This appears to be easy, but it requires entrepreneurs with a holistic approach towards the production chain (which is an old-fashioned term, it should be ‘the production cycle’ in a circular economy). And because there are different opinions when it comes to holistic approaches, a circular economy entrepreneur should also be able to value different opinions, in order to make right decisions.

3. CIRCULAR ECONOMY - CONSUMER SIDE

A circular economy is not only the responsibility for entrepreneurs (producers), although they do have a key-role in this. Consumers also need to make a mind shift from ‘having things’ to ‘using things’. Consumers can’t be responsible for re-using goods, because they’re usually not able to make something new out of it. That’s why goods should go back to the entrepreneurs, so they can relocate the used resources. These goods will come back automatically to entrepreneurs, when they are the owner, instead of the consumers (www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org).

Based on this description, education for a circular economy can be both for (future) entrepreneurs and consumers.

4. WHY CIRCULAR ECONOMY EDUCATION IS VALUABLE FOR VET

Education on circular economy is a valuable addition to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Vocational Education and Training (VET) for several reasons:

Practical RelevaNce

Career Opportunities

By integrating circular economy education into ESD within VET, institutions can empower learners to become agents of positive change, capable of promoting sustainable practices, reducing waste, and contributing to a more sustainable and resilient society.

Resource Efficiency

Business Innovation

Systems Thinking

Responsible Consumer Behavior

Collaboration and Networking

Future-Proofing Skills

5. Subjects in which you can teach circular economy

A lot of subjects can be used as context for education for a circular economy, as long as they have a link with closed (natural or technological) loops systems (Webster and Johnson, 2008). Figure 2 gives an overview of natural cycles on our planet. These natural cycles (closed loops systems) can be linked to different kinds of subjects (just some examples):
Oil / gas / energy and transport related subjects: the carbon cycle
Food related subjects: phosphorus cycle and nitrogen cycle
Water related subjects: water cycle
Biodiversity / nature / forestry related subjects: oxygen cycle

6. Learning topics for education for a circular economy

Systems thinking

Perspectives

Innovative

Inclusivity

Proactive

Problem-recontextualisation

Communicative

Change

Action

Didactical concepts and requirements for education for a circular economy

Webster & Johnson (2008) describe education for a circular economy as a specific form of ESD. They criticize regular education to be like a linear production process. With two figures, they clarify their ideas about education for a circular economy.

First, a learning process should be a circular process too. Start with a concrete experience, extend that to a reflective observation, conceptualise and test ideas with active experiments. This delivers new concrete experiences, which makes it possible to continue with a learning cycle (instead of a linear learning process).
The second idea, is to close the loop. Learners should learn about ecological systems, about the innovative industry of cradle to cradle, using innovative participatory learning approaches.

Didactical requirements

Based on desk research by the ThreeC project, some didactical requirements (design criteria) for education for a circular economy were formulated:

start with a very specific subject matter or business case, using real-life problems; ensure that the specific subject matter is a situation that needs improvement from the perspective of circular economy, but that isn’t too complex for learners to be improved;
cooperate with companies or organisations and ask them to be a contractor for learners;
work in an interactive way;
encourage participation in amusing, enjoyable and motivating ways;
use creative and effective experiential investigation;
encourage the use of complexity theories and an ecosystem approach;
allow processes that brings new things into being, and allows participants to do the same;
use reflective writings;
encourage creating better alternatives for decision problems, identifying decision opportunities more appealing than the decision problems that confront you.

A nine-steps-approach and teaching strategies for education for a circular economy

The ThreeC project developed a nine-steps-approach that can be considered a sequence for educational projects. These steps can be applied to classroom settings and as preparation project for internships. Every step can be conducted with different kinds of teaching strategies, e.g. learner oriented or teacher oriented, giving examples and suggestions or letting learners explore things themselves.

3. Relate

2. Understand

1. Attention

4. Analyse

6. Solve

5. Value

8. Present

9. Reflect

Background Info

Conclusion

We have now provided you with a didactic 9-step plan to help you integrate Circular Economy into your lessons. We wish you lots of fun and success in developing exciting teaching projects for your students!

5. Let's practice what we've learned!

QUIZ TIME

EVERGREEN QUIZ

Quiz

Teaching circular economy for Sustainable Development

EVERGREEN QUIZ

QUESTION 1/5

What is a key principle of Circular Economy?

Waste minimization and resource efficiency

Single-use plastic promotion

Linear production and consumption

EVERGREEN QUIZ

RIGHT!

NEXT QUESTION

EVERGREEN QUIZ

QUESTION 2/5

What is a key aspect of the learning process in education for a circular economy?

Learning cycle involving concrete experiences

Linear progression from theory to practice

Traditional teaching methods without participation

EVERGREEN QUIZ

RIGHT!

NEXT QUESTION

EVERGREEN QUIZ

QUESTION 3/5

Which of the following is a didactical requirement for designing effective learning experiences?

Use interactive, participatory, and creative methods

Focus on theory and isolate learners from real-life problem

Emphasize complex and abstract theories

EVERGREEN QUIZ

RIGHT!

NEXT QUESTION

EVERGREEN QUIZ

QUESTION 4/5

What is a notable feature of the Nine-Steps-Approac for educational projects?

Flexibility in applying different teaching strategies

Exclusively designed for classroom settings

A rigid sequence with a fixed set of teaching strategies

EVERGREEN QUIZ

RIGHT!

NEXT QUESTION

EVERGREEN QUIZ

QUESTION 5/5

Why is integrating education on circular economy into Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in VET considered valuable?

It empowers learners to become agents of positive change

It limits the scope of education to theoretical concepts

It narrows the focus to specific vocational skills

EVERGREEN QUIZ

RIGHT!

RESULTS

EVERGREEN QUIZ

1-2Correct

3-4Correct

5Correct

0Correct

Give a title, write a short explanation

Give a title, write a short explanation.

+info

6. REFERENCES

Books/Papers/Articles

Examples

The following assignment is an example of ranking as a teaching strategy. On the following page, you find an overview of the environmental impact of Puma’s activities throughout their production chain (Puma, 2010). Figure 14 shows an overview of the kinds of environmental impacts per tier within the production chain. And figure 15 shows how big the impact is, in terms of measurements. The assignment, related to these two figures is: a) where in the production chain should Puma invest first, to reduce its environmental impact? b) With which kind of cycles (biological or technical) are these investments related?

Puma’s environmental environmental impact per tier (of the production chain) in measurements

Overview of environmental impact of Puma’s production

Suggestions for teaching strategies

Write a story or a poem.
Create a performance.
Make a song or find related music.
Do an interview or organise a group-discussion.
Make a mind map or a symbolic map.
Make or find images.
Find an animal or plant to explain differences and similarities.

To underline learners’ involvement (which is the core idea of this step), also simpler teaching strategies can be conducted: just asking questions like where, when, how often or how much.

At a website of The Public School (http://thepublicschool.org), subjectification is described as a teaching strategy. Explained in a very simple way, subjectification is a way to precede a subject in the same way as the process of individuation precedes the creation of the individual. As a teacher, you ask learners to pretend to be a subject, a theory or a person and to present the main characteristics to others.To put the idea of subjectification in practice, learners can use strategies based on the multiple intelligence, as recommended by Geisen (2014), in his publication on sustainable and meaningful education. A teacher can ask students to characterise something in different ways:

Purpose

Start a project with the introduction of a situation that triggers learners’ attention.

Examples

In the pilot project in Westerlo, learners were instructed to prepare the presentation with the following instruction: A poster gives information about your subject with text and images. A poster should provide enough information to understand, even if there’s no explanation. Take the following into account:

Make a drawing and a description of your design.
Explain why this fits with circular economy.
Ensure 1/3 is text, 2/3 are images.
A good title.
Make it readable, also from greater distance.
Try to give the poster an attractive design.

Prepare a pitch (2 minutes) to persuade others about your design. A good pitch contains three elements:

A starter: think of a sentence that invites to continue listening.
Middle part: explain why your design is the best.
End: think of a sentence that the audience won’t forget.

The learner values one solution to another and chooses the best option, in relationship to his analysis of the situation (step 4) and relevant opinions (step 5).

Rauch, F. & Steiner, R. (2013): Competences for education for sustainable development in teacher Education. In: CEPS Journal 3 (2013) 1, S. 9-24. URN: urn:nbn:de:0111-opus-76634.
Reigeluth, C.M., Merrill, M.D., Wilson, B.G. & Spiller, R.T. (1980). The elaboration theory of instruction: a model for sequencing and synthesizing instruction. Instructional Science 9, pp. 195-219.
Reveal (n.d.). Level 5 Manual. Derived at October 13, 2014, at http://www.reveal-eu.org/uploads/media/REVEAL_LEVEL5_Manual.pdf.
Sipos, Y., Battisti, B. and Grimm, K. (2008). Achieving transformative sustainability learning: engaging head, hands and heart. In: International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. Vol. 9 No. 1, 2008, pp. 68-86.
Sleurs, W. (Ed.) (2008). Competencies for ESD teachers. Signau: ENSI Network Taylor, L. (2008). Key concepts and medium term planning. In: Teaching Geography. Sheffield: Geographical Association.
Visser, J. & Keller J.M. (1990). The clinical use of motivational messages: an inquiry into the validity of the ARCS model of motivational design. Instructional Science 19:467-500. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers
Vries, G. de (2010). Denkend aan Vlieland. In: Didactief. Opinie en onderzoek voor de schoolpraktijk, nr. 4, april 2010.

Responsible Consumer Behavior

By educating VET students about circular economy concepts, they can become conscious consumers who make sustainable choices. This awareness can extend beyond their professional lives and positively impact their communities as responsible citizens.

Suggestions for teaching strategies

During this second step, a few other aspects can be mentioned:
Present the epitome to the learners (epitome = an overview of the steps that they are going to conduct, to answer solve the problem).
Introduce the contractor (company or organisation) that you involved in the project, so learners know from the beginning that they are seriously going to work for a contractor.
Make clear how and when students will be assessed to prove they developed relevant competencies.

If step 2 (understand) is the starting point for an inquiry process, the main question for a teaching strategy is: how pre-structured do I like to work as a teacher? There are different choices:

Present the main question to your learners.
Give an example of a relevant question.
Describe options for relevant questions.
Hand over criteria for a good question.
Give your learners advice and feedback after they formulated the question themselves (Ankoné & Van der Vaart, 2006).

Change

The learner is able to adapt ideas for dynamic change in uncertain environments.

Examples

The following lesson was developed as a pilot lesson for ThreeC in the Netherlands. The lesson was about palm oil industry in Uganda. A summary of the lesson instructions:

Learners were given information about the case via a documentary (video)
Learners were provided text-cards with relevant and non-relevant information: a) select relevant information (based on the documentary); b) make a division between causes and consequences.
Relate causes and consequences to each other, based on the principles of a problem tree
Evaluate with your teacher if you have a good overview of causes and consequences. Relate you analysis to different levels of scale (local, national, global). Which level of scale is underrepresented? Find missing information.

Perspectives

The learner is able to challenge common concepts.

Examples

During the pilot project in Westerlo, learners had to reflect on the project after their presentation, together with the expert. The project appeared to be too short to have good, deep reflections. One can find other examples of reflections on the internet. One example of the STARR interview technique can be seen on this short video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNtUBVeNR9M. Another interesting website to inquire, is the Teaching Chanel: www.teachingchannel.org/.

Purpose

Learners present their ideas to the contractor. They will try to persuade him or her of their idea.

Background info

An interesting concept is the ARCS motivational theory of Keller, originally formulated in 1983, but still used a lot in regular education (Visser and Keller, 1990; Nakaima, Nakano, Watanabe and Suzuki, n.d.). Keller’s idea is to design a learning environment that stimulates the motivation of the learner during the learning process. According to Keller, there are four conditions to take into account: attention (get attention of the learner), relevance (make the learning process relevant), confidence (raise the confidence of the learner) and satisfaction (make sure that the learner can be satisfied about the learning outcomes and assessment results). Especially the condition ‘attention’ our approach. Keller describes that there are three aspects of attention:

Perceptual arousal; change from perspective, confuse learners with, at first sight, illogic and conflicting situations. This can be linked with social transformative learning: create space for new ways of thinking.
Inquiry arousal; stimulate information seeking behaviour by asking questions or promoting inquiry. This can be linked with inquiry based learning.
Variability; changing ways of instruction increases learners’ interest. This promotes the usage of different kinds of teaching strategies.

Action

The learner acts independently on own initiative, cooperating with others, based on strategic planning.

Background info

Ten Dam and Volman (2004) describe critical thinking as a learning process that pays attention to the (political) effects of argumentation and reasoning. They summarize teaching strategies for critical thinking, based on the idea that this can be developed by creating learners’ own ideas, using real-life problems, with discussion and dialogue playing a key role and promoting inquiry. The latter is promoted more and more by geography educators too. One of the promoters of this so-called inquiry based learning, is Liz Taylor (2008). She suggests that a learning process should be facilitated with a relevant question, with pith and rigour, which gives the possibility to design and conduct a sequence of lessons to enable learners to answer this question.

The examples of questions she describes can be characterised as heuristic, future- or solution-oriented and valuing. Geographical questions are about four key-concepts: change (past, present and future), interaction (how things are connected), diversity (about difference) and perception (how different we see things). These four key-concepts seem to be relevant for ESD too.

Purpose

To give insight into the way how learners can relate themselves to the situation they are going to analyse: what’s in it for me, how am I involved in this situation, how do I feel with this, do I know people who are related to this situation and so on. One should define what’s going on, what the problem is. This results in a question, given by the teacher or formulated by learners themselves (depending on the ability of learners to formulate questions). This is the starting point of an inquiry sequence.

Future-Proofing Skills

With global challenges such as climate change and resource depletion, the circular economy provides a long-term and sustainable approach to resource management. Educating VET learners in circular economy principles prepares them for future challenges and ensures their skills remain relevant and adaptable.

Examples

There are different ways to formulate questions. Under here, some examples are given.

The empathy question: Would you choose to do (…)?
The prescriptive question: Should you / should one / should people (…)?
The solution oriented question: How to prevent / how to solve (…)?
The future oriented question: Will there be / Is it going to be (…)?

During a pilot project in Westerlo, step 2 was introduced with an exercise to underline ‘what’s going on’. Learners were asked to unwrap a drinking package. They noticed that a drinking package has seven layers (!) with (partly) unrecyclable materials. So the question appeared: how can drinking packages be produced in a more sustainable way?

Background info

Rauch & Steiner (2013) mention different aspects of ESD. One aspect they mention, is communicating: to be able to act in a sustainable, you need to be able to communicate. Without communication, one can do nothing. In a document of the EU (2012), entrepreneurial competencies are described. In terms of communication, learners should be able to persuade others. Douwe Jan Joustra and Colin Webster stated during interviews with both of them, that the aspect of communication should also involve the ability to inform others, to be clear on the systems aspects, not only what your arguments are, but also the way you present them.

Purpose

After redesigning a product, learners should evaluate this. This kind of reflection can focus on different aspects (depending on the formulated objectives): the learning process, the designing process, the results and/or the content of the issue with which it all started at the first place. This final step should deliver meaningful insights that can be used in new situations (transfer).

Systems Thinking

Circular economy education promotes systems thinking, helping VET learners understand the interconnectedness of economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainability. This holistic perspective enhances problem-solving abilities and the capacity to identify and address sustainability challenges effectively.

Career Opportunities

As the circular economy gains momentum globally, there is a growing demand for professionals who can design, implement, and manage circular solutions. Offering circular economy education in VET equips learners with sought-after skills, enhancing their employability in the emerging green economy.

Business Innovation

Circular economy principles foster creativity and entrepreneurship by encouraging VET learners to think outside the traditional linear economic model. Students can explore new business models, product design, and service approaches that align with sustainability objectives, driving innovation in various industries.

Proactive

The learner is proactively seeking goals to organise effective outcomes of consumption and production, meeting the needs of present and future generations.

Examples

To wonder

The following picture (bird with plastic) was used at the start of the pilot project for ThreeC. Possible questions to be asked are: What is this? What happened? Why did this happen? What has this to do with us? What do you think of this? Could this be prevented

A concrete experience

During an educational programme about waste, students came up with the idea to take dustbins into the classroom and to empty it on a plastic canvas. Pupils were confronted with the amount of sandwiches that was thrown away and were asked if they think it’s a lot and how often they throw away food themselves?

Something familiar

How often do you know renewable energy is used? Do you know more of these kind of examples? (parking meter)

bird with plastic

parking meter

Examples

During the pilot project in Westerlo, learners were asked how often drinking packages were used. Learners didn’t feel related to the subject of drinking packages, which was more for primary school pupils. This underlines the importance of choosing a good subject or a business case for a project.
In a Dutch geography schoolbook, learners were given the following question: What couldn’t you have done today, if you had no access to electricity? The idea is, that answers on this question are evaluated during a conversation in the classroom.

Suggestions for teaching strategies

One possibility to get attention, is to wonder about something (using an impressing image or a quiz with ‘amazing’ facts) or to organise a controlled chaotic situation (‘what happens!?’).
It could be the introduction of a concrete experience of someone or the experience of a learner himself.
Attention can also start with the introduction (by a story, image, film or anything else) of something familiar.

Suggestions for teaching strategies

Consider that the analysis is related to the production of the chosen business case (specific product). Learners should be aware of the various aspects within the production chain of the specific product (see also step 7). Analysis (based on systems thinking) contains three substeps. Inventory causes and consequences of the identified problem of the business case. For instance, if the business case is about packaging, and learners noticed that a drinking package contains several undisposable materials, the analysis is about: what are consequences of the usage of these materials and what are the causes of the usage of these materials? As a teacher, one has some choices for teaching strategies here: Learners find out themselves, based on good information skills. They will find causes and consequences (for instances for the case: what are causes and consequences of using drinking packages) on the internet. Difficult is, how this will be evaluated? As a teacher, you select relevant information, to be sure that learners will find causes and consequences they need to find. Learners will analyse the information and will be able to make the inventory of causes and consequences. As a teacher, you pre-structure causes and consequences. For instance: provide text-cards with relevant and non-relevant information. Step 1: select the right information. Step 2: make a division between causes and consequences. 2. Schematising: relate causes and consequences to each other. There are different ways to schematise: (four pictures) Problem-tree: see figure 9. Causes of the problem (which is called ‘unbalanced usage of resources’) are divided in political, economic, social-cultural and environmental causes. Consequences are divided in shortages and abundances. This kind of schema is the easiest to start with. Story-line: a way of schematising showing the causes for change of occurrence of a certain event. In figure 10, the presence of the house sparrow in Dutch gardens is drawn. Different stages of the presence of the house sparrow are explained with text boxes in the story line. Causal loop: this is the most complex type of schematising, but mostly linked to circular economy. Causal loops can be, on the other hand, very simple, like in figure 11, but also very complex, like in figure 12. You can leave it up to learners to decide which kind of schema they will make or you pre-structure the schema as a kind of puzzle. 3. Changing level of analysis: zooming in (detailed) and zooming out (overview) on the case. Evaluate with learners if they have enough details in their analysis and a good overview of the case.

Examples

The following lesson was developed as a pilot lesson for ThreeC in the Netherlands. The lesson (in Dutch) is about genetically modified food. A summary of the lesson instructions:

Learners were asked to watch a short animation film about genetically modified food.
Learners were given a text with the opinion of four people: Owen Paterson, Mark Lynas, Jesse Klaver en Belinda Martineau. Furthermore, they were given ten textcards with short summaries of people’s opinions. Learners were asked to make a match between the four people and the text-cards, They were allowed to use only four out of ten text cards.
Learners were asked to categorise the four opinions with the following value-quadrant. The four perspectives are optimists, pessimists, scientific arguments and societal arguments.
Learners were asked to formulate their own opinion on this and to prepare an oral defense.

In the pilot project in Westerlo, the assignment related to this step (value) mainly focused on the question: why do producers of drinking packages want to produce their product in a sustainable way? It became clear for learners that there are more reasons: not only environmental, but also economic reasons.

Communicative

The learner explains choices with relevant arguments and is able to convince others.

Wals, A.E.J. (2006). The end of ESD… the beginning of transformative learning. Emphasizing the ‘E’ in ESD. In: Cantell, M. (Ed.). Proceedings of the Seminar on Education for Sustainable Development held in Helsinki, February 15, 2006.
Webster, K. & Johnson, C. (2008). Sense & Sustainability. Educating for a circular economy. Terra Preta.
Wolf, M. de [ed.] (2011). Lesgeven over duurzame ontwikkeling. Antwerpen/Apeldoorn: Garant Uitgevers.

Practical Relevance

Circular economy education provides VET learners with practical knowledge and skills that directly apply to real-world situations and industries. By understanding circular economy principles, VET students can contribute to sustainable practices in their future careers, making a tangible impact on environmental and economic sustainability.

Suggestions for teaching strategies

To be able to change perspectives during a lesson, a teacher should know some general perspectives, related to sustainable development. De Wolf et al (2011) describe the following perspectives:

Technology-pessimism: this group of thinkers belief that more population, more welfare and more technological development will lead to a higher demand of natural resources, with depletion and pollution as a consequence. The main solution, is to use less resources. These people are often called neo-Malthusian thinkers, referring to Thomas Malthus, who was one of the first to write down pessimistic ideas about the relationship between population growth and the presence of natural resources. An example of a neo-Malthusian thinker is Al Gore, who underlines the risk of climate change, because of population and welfare growth.
Technology-optimism: this group of thinkers are confident in the strength of technological development. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’. Finally human being will be able to solve all problems.
Traditionally, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is strongly related to technology-pessimism. Education for Circular Economy is more linked to technology-optimism. Important to be aware of these two perspectives and to reflect on the analysis (step 4) from these two points of view: was the analysis too pessimistic or too optimistic?
Two other perspectives are relevant too:
Egalitarianisms: this group of thinkers belief it’s important to have equal access to resources and just little income inequality. Egalitarian thinkers are strongly linked to neo-Marxist ideas.
Liberalism: this group of thinkers belief the most important value in society is freedom. Each person should have the freedom te be who he wants te be and to do what he wants to do.

Many scholars in ESD tend to approach subjects from the egalitarian point of view. Education for Circular Economy is, from its entrepreneurial background, more than ESD, linked to liberal perspectives.

Examples

During the pilot project in Westerlo, students were asked to think of alternatives for drinking packages from the viewpoint of different perspectives: as an ceramic artist, as Barbapapa, as a child of 4 years or as a cartoon character (professor Barabas). They were asked to continue with the brainstorm, based on the ideas of the previous group member. ‘Yes, but’ was not allowed. To be able to come up with realisable ideas, they were provided a catalogue with information about package materials, which they had to study before this brainstorm lesson. The contractor for the pilot project, Ger Standhardt from the Dutch Packaging Center, evaluated the ideas of the learners in Westerlo as creative and innovative. Students mainly thought about shape, size and used materials, but also considered transport possibilities. The evaluator of the pilot project wrote the following about this assignment: “This step worked out reasonable. Students were motivated when they were designing their case. The materials catalogue proved to be a vital tool. However, students focused more on the design of the product (especially the shape of the package) than on the production and recycling process. The assignment should therefore be changed, for example by requiring students to spend half of their poster on the design of the packaging, and the other half to the production and recycling process. Teachers should ask students provocative questions to raise their thinking to a higher level.”

Jaspers, M. & Zijl, E. van (2011). Kwaliteit van toetsing in het Hoger Onderwijs. Eindhoven: Fontys Hogescholen.
Jutten, J. (n.d.). Systeemdenken in de klas. Derived at March 15, 2010, at http://93.186.179.121/~omjs/bijlagen/systeemdenken.pdf.
Lambrechts, W. (2012). De integratie van competenties voor duurzame ontwikkeling in het hoger Onderwijs. Derived at October 14, 2014, at www.lne.be/doelgroepen/onderwijs/ecocampus/kennis-en-instrumentenhub/literatuur-2/lambrechts-competenties.pdf.
McPartland, M. (2001). Moral Dilemmas. Geographical Association. Nakaima, K., Nakano, H.,
Watanabe, A. and Suzuki, K. (n.d.). Research for proposing the subcategories of the volitional element for the ARCS-V model. Derived at October 22, 2014, at http://icome.bnu.edu.cn/sites/default/files/Full_Paper/Parallel%20Sessions/8.20%20afternoon%20Parallel%20Sessions%201/Lecture%20Room%202/2-Research%20for%20proposing%20the%20subcategories%20of%20the%20volitional%20element%20for%20the%20ARCS-V%20model.pdf.
Puma (2010). PUMA’s Environmental Profit and Loss Account for the year ended 31 December 2010. Derived at May 26, 2015, at http://glasaaward.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/EPL080212final.pdf.

Background info

To be able to answer complex questions, one should be able to think in terms of systems (e.g. Sleurs et al, 2008; Webster and Johnson, 2008; De Wolf et al, 2011; Lambrechts, 2012; Rauch and Steiner, 2013). This can be seen as a complex learning process, with a few elements: causal thinking (recognising relations), schematising and changing level of analysis (Jutten, n.d.; De Wolf et al, 2011). One educational concept that might help us with instructional design for systems thinking, is the elaboration theory of Reigeluth et al (1980), a cognitivist approach. “According to elaboration theory, instruction should be organized in increasing order of complexity for optimal learning. (…) A key idea of elaboration theory is that the learner needs to develop a meaningful context into which subsequent ideas and skills can be assimilated.” (www.instructionaldesign.org)

Suggestions for teaching strategies

This step might lead to an insight, that the solution that was chosen during step 6 (solve) wasn’t most effective and feasible. So if this seventh step leads to the insight that step 6 needs to be done over, it’s simply like that. In other words: step 6 and 7 are strongly linked to each other. The first part of this step is related to the production process. How should the production process be organised to realise the chosen solution? Therefore, the concept of the production chain (which should be a production cycle) can be used. The production chain (figure – source in comments) shows who is involved in the production of a certain product. The second part of this step is related to the product design itself. Learners should ask themselves, what the consequences are for the product design, if the production process changes: the shape, size and used materials. Learners formulate design criteria and make, if possible, a prototype of the product. This can be a very extended iterative process or just a short version of it. During this step, it’s very helpful to have the contractor involved to support the learners with relevant information and feedback. On the other hand, learners should feel space to develop their own ideas and shouldn’t be hindered to come up with unorthodox ideas.

Innovative

The learner is able to deal with uncertainty and sensitive towards weak signals.

Ankoné, H. & Van der Vaart, R. (2006). Handreiking schoolexamen aardrijkskunde havo/vwo. SLO: Enschede.
Berg, G. van den [red.] (2009). Handboek vakdidactiek. Amsterdam: Centrum voor educatieve Geografie (www.vakdidactiekaardrijkskunde.nl).
Dam, G. ten and Volman, M. (2004). Critical thinking as a citizenship competence: teaching strategies. In: Learning and Instruction 14 (2004) 359–379.
Duke, B., Harper, G. and Johnston, M. (n.d.). Connectivism as a Learning Theory for the Digital Age. Derived at October 22, 2014, at www.hetl.org/wp-content/uploads/gravity_forms/2-298b245759ca2b0fab82a867d719cbae/2013/01/Connectivism-hand-out.pdf.
European Union (2012). Effects and impact of entrepreneurship programmes in higher education. Brussels: Entrepreneurship Unit, Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry, European Commission.
Geisen, G. (2014). Autopoiesis. Perspectives on sustainable, meaningful education. Utrecht: Netherlands Enterprise Agency.
Hoobroeckx, F. & Haak, E. (2002). Onderwijskundig ontwerpen. Houten: Bohn Stafleu van Loghum.
Hoogeveen, P. & Winkels, J. (2008). Het didactische werkvormenboek. Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum.

Suggestions for teaching strategies

For the stage of presenting the results, it’s important to invite the contractor(s) to be present. Be clear to learners what they are expected to do during the presentation: What do they need to present? How should they do the presentation? When are they expected to do the presentation? How much time do they get? Who is going to be present and what is expected from the audience?

Problem-recontextualisation

The learner recognizes chances and designs solutions in a responsible and creative way.

Suggestions for teaching strategies

Core idea of the circular economy is, that products are made to be made (or used) again. It’s not a coincidence that re-usage of product happens, you know how re-usage will happen, before you make the product. The figure might be a good help to pre-structure possible solutions for learners. Will the solution be found within the biological or within the technical cycle or within the combination of these two? And within which subcycle(s) should the solution be organised? Of course, it’s a possibility not to pre-structure this step for learners, but it’s doubtful if they will be able to come up with as many alternatives as the figure shows. It is very useful to relate the choice for a solution to the analysis (step 4) and relevant opinions (step 5). If learners did the analysis with a linear schema, like the problem-tree, it could be challenging to ask them to change the linear problem-tree into a causal loop. While doing that, they change the linear system to a circular system. The risk is, that this approach is too complicated to do, too technical in terms of systems thinking, and that learners will lose focus on the main idea of this step: choosing the best solution. One teaching strategy, is to organise a brainstorm. That can be done in small groups and with the whole class afterwards. Always ask learners to relate their ideas to the analysis and relevant opinions. Evaluate the brainstorm, using the words effectiveness and realisable: which solution seems to be most effective and realisable? NB: Effective is something else than efficient. Efficient can be considered as the cheapest, easiest solution. Effective means, that it tackles the main causes of the problem. Within a brainstorm, different teaching strategies can be used:

Ranking: ask learners to rank solutions from ‘effective and realisable’ to ‘ineffective and not-realisable’.
Choosing (or/or-choise): ask learners to choose different kinds of solutions – A or B, A or C, A or D, B or C, B or D, C or D?
Opinion line: ask learners to form a line, to put themselves in a position pro or contra a solution.

Background info

ESD means the creation of space for social and transformative learning Wals (2006). Social learning can be considered as ‘a learning system in which people learn from each other and collectively become more capable of dealing with setbacks, stress, insecurity, complexity and risks’. Transformative social learning includes space for alternative paths of development, new ways of thinking, pluralism, consensus and respectful disagreement, autonomous thinking, self-determination and contextual differences.

Inclusivity

The learner takes others into account for those and his own benefit.

Resource Efficiency

Circular economy education emphasizes the efficient use of resources and waste reduction. VET students can learn about innovative methods to reduce material consumption, recycle, and repurpose materials, contributing to resource conservation and mitigating environmental impacts.

Concrete Experience

Reflective Observation

Active Experimentation

Abstract Conceptualisation

Collaboration and Networking

Circular economy education often involves collaboration with businesses, industries, and sustainability organizations. Engaging in such partnerships allows VET institutions to expand their network, share knowledge, and create valuable opportunities for their students.

Teaching circular economy for Sustainable Development

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Transcript

Teaching circular economy for Sustainable Development

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. DIDACTICAL APPROACH

3. CIRCULAR ECONOMY

3. CIRCULAR ECONOMY - PRODUCER SIDE

3. CIRCULAR ECONOMY - CONSUMER SIDE

4. WHY CIRCULAR ECONOMY EDUCATION IS VALUABLE FOR VET

5. Subjects in which you can teach circular economy

6. Learning topics for education for a circular economy

Didactical concepts and requirements for education for a circular economy

Didactical requirements

A nine-steps-approach and teaching strategies for education for a circular economy

3. Relate

2. Understand

1. Attention

4. Analyse

6. Solve

5. Value

8. Present

9. Reflect

7. Design

Step 1: Attention

Step 2: Understand

Step 3: Relate

Step 4: Analyse

Step 5: Value

Step 6: Solve

Step 7: Design

Step 8: Present

Step 9: Reflect

Conclusion

5. Let's practice what we've learned!

QUIZ TIME

6. REFERENCES

Examples

Suggestions for teaching strategies

Purpose

Examples

Purpose

Systems thinking

Background info

Purpose

Background info

Background info

Purpose

Background info

Suggestions for teaching strategies

Purpose

Purpose

Responsible Consumer Behavior

Suggestions for teaching strategies

Change

Examples

Perspectives

Examples

Purpose

Background info

Action

Background info

Purpose

Future-Proofing Skills

Examples