Activate the Circular Economy Through Experiential Learning
The Circular Classroom is a free interactive educational toolkit designed to integrate circular thinking into high school and upper secondary classrooms. Developed in collaboration with Finnish educators and students, it is packaged in a fun, beautiful format and provides resources for students and teachers alike.
Ultimately, the Circular Classroom supports young people in recognizing the exciting opportunity that redesigning products, services and systems has for the future, in exploring how their engagement with the world today impacts the future, and in supporting their decisions around their professions.
For students, the toolkit includes three knowledge-building modules, complete with videos, workbooks, and 20+ in-class activities. For teachers, we developed a complementary Educator Support Pack that includes a lesson planner aligned with the Finnish curriculum, ideas for more complex conversations around circularity and sustainability, additional resources and a curated educational video collection.
How we did it
Leveraging a collaborative co-design process rooted in the Disruptive Design Method, we engaged directly with Finnish students and educators in co-design workshops. Here, we prototyped, tested, and refined activities to ensure they were both impactful and accessible.
Working with the very talented illustrator and designer, Emma Segal, we took great effort to create a visually beautiful and highly engaging design aesthetic and communication language for this project that would speak to the students. Her illustrations were designed to translate complex concepts into accessible and approachable visuals that help to reinforce and integrate the activities. Several videos were then made that engage the students with the topics areas in a fun and engaging way.
FastCo Honorable Mention for World Changing Ideas in Education
Learning Modules
Each module contains three core classroom activities, a student workbook and a series of extra ideas for in-class or take-home enrichment to help get students excited and motivated about the incredible opportunities that the Circular Economy offers us all. Module titles include:
- From Linear to Circular Thinking
- Systems and Sustainability
- Design and Creativity
Videos
We developed a series of short energised videos to help teachers bring the big ideas of the Circular Classroom into focus.
From quick concept introductions through to hands-on guides for activities like e-waste autopsies and systems mapping, these videos enhanced the content delivery in a practical, engaging format.
Subtitle options in English, Finnish, or Swedish.
Educator Support Pack
The Educator Support Pack is designed to rapidly transfer knowledge in the areas of the circular economy, systems thinking, and sustainability, along with support the educators’ lesson planning while providing connections to the Finnish curriculum. These types of support tools were requested by the educators through the co-design sessions, so we wanted to make sure that they felt supported and equipped to deliver the content in their own unique ways.
“Sustainability is chock full of highly passionate experts in the field, but very few have the ability to distill and communicate highly complex subjects in the way Leyla can – stripping away that complexity and presenting the details in the way anyone can comprehend and act upon.”
– Al Dean, Editor Develop 3D
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