Optional sustainability lesson: What is fast fashion and why is it a problem?
Exploring the impact of fast fashion by discussing sustainability and the waste hierarchy; evaluating ways to reduce textile waste through reuse, recycling and upcycling; creating a sustainable fashion project, such as a clothes swap or upcycling activity.
Learning objective
To explore sustainable fashion by working in a team to plan a clothes swap or upcycling project.
Success criteria
I can explain what fast fashion is and why it harms the environment.
I can describe how reusing and recycling clothes and shoes helps reduce waste.
I can plan a sustainable fashion project.
Before the lesson
Watch
- 602 views
Watch
- 602 views
Lesson plan
Display the Presentation: Agree or disagree? Ask the children to discuss the statement on the slide with a partner.
Display the Presentation: Agree or disagree? Ask the children to discuss the statement on the slide with a partner.
Presentation: Agree or disagree?
Take feedback, ensuring the children justify their answers.
Display the Presentation: Sustainability and fashion and read through each slide.
Display the Presentation: Sustainability and fashion and read through each slide.
Presentation: Sustainability and fashion
Make presentation full-screen
- What are the three Rs? (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.)
- Why are the three Rs ordered Reduce, Reuse, Recycle? (The children may suggest: reduce comes first because using less creates less waste and pollution; reuse comes second because using things again saves resources and reduces the need for new products; recycle comes last because it still uses energy and resources, so it should be the final option after reducing and reusing.)
Arrange the children into pairs and hand out the whiteboards and pens. Ask the children to draw a line down the centre of their whiteboard and title the columns Sustainable and Unsustainable.
Display slide 1 of the Presentation: Sustainable fashion.
Presentation: Sustainable fashion
Make presentation full-screen
Ask the children to sort the images into two groups: sustainable fashion and unsustainable fashion.
Take feedback, dragging and dropping the images onto the sliding scale. Ensure the children justify their choices. For the sustainable choices, ask them to decide which of the three Rs (Reduce, Reuse or Recycle) makes it sustainable.
Play the Pupil video: Fast fashion, pausing at 1:17.
Use sticky tack to fix the scrap paperto the wall of the classroom, with 'Positive' at one end, 'Negative' at the other and 'It’s complicated' in the middle.
Arrange the children into pairs and give each pair a statement from the Activity: Fashion statements. Ask the children to discuss their statements with their partners and decide where on the continuum they think their statements should be placed.
Invite the pairs to stand along the continuum. Once all the class is in position, ask each pair to read their statement. Give the other children the opportunity to challenge where they are standing and allow the pairs to move if they are swayed by their peers’ arguments.
Example work
Brushwood Junior School, Chesham
Brushwood Junior School, Chesham
Brushwood Junior School, Chesham
Brushwood Junior School, Chesham
Brushwood Junior School, Chesham
Brushwood Junior School, Chesham
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- Current lesson
Optional sustainability lesson: What is fast fashion and why is it a problem?
