An example of learning about plastics and their evaluation as a contribution to Education for Sustainable Development in secondary school chemistry teaching

This paper describes the development and evaluation of a secondary school lesson plan for chemistry education on the topic Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The lessons focus both on the chemistry of plastics and on learning about the societal evaluation of competing, chemistry-based industrial products. A specific teaching method was developed and applied for the latter purpose: the consumer test method. This method mimics the authentic societal practice of evaluation performed by consumer testing agencies. Applying the consumer test method in the context of this paper is directly tied to the three dimensions most often occurring in prominent sustainability models: ecological, economic and societal sustainability. This paper justifies embedding learning about plastics into the ESD-perspective by using the socio-critical and problem-oriented approach to chemistry teaching. An overview of the lesson plan is given. Experiences and feedback from teachers and students based on the cyclical development by Participatory Action Research are discussed. They reveal the lesson plan's potential to contribute to higher levels of student motivation and ESD understanding.