In this assignment, students kept a "Waste Diary," tracking and sorting their daily waste over seven days while reflecting on concepts like “degrowth” and “sustainable growth.”Author: Fang Xu, Continuing Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies FieldsCourse Number & Title: ISF 100I Consumer Society and CultureGrant Type: Lecturer Teaching Fellows Program (LTF)This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0(link is external) |
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From the author: "For my ISF 100I Consumer Society and Culture, I developed an assignment called “Waste Diary and Report,” which aims to raise awareness of the difference between purchase, consumption, and possession through investigation of the waste generated from our everyday life. Students log in their daily garbage of various sorts, including but not limited to food scraps, packaging, household items, etc. and how they are sorted into compost, trash, and recycling for seven consecutive days. The associated report requires students to reflect on concepts such as “down/up recycle,” “degrowth,” and “sustainable/green growth.” The individual project was well received so I hope to explore its pedagogical potential further by developing a student-led group project to generate a longitudinal study about consumption and waste among college students, create a database for future students and interested parties across campus, and connect students to campus and community resources in the associated research field."