Citizen_Labs - conception and evaluation of a course on plastic waste and microplastic in adult education

Abstract

The issue of plastic waste and microplastics has received increasing attention in recent years in reports and social media. As part of the Fridays for Future movement, young people regularly take to the streets to stand up for a more sustainable future. However, in the numerous debates surrounding the issues it often seems that an absolute renunciation of plastics should be necessary, but this is not always possible and only conditionally more sustainable. This article presents a project in the context of education for sustainable development, which transfers the already researched student laboratory GreenLab_OS into adult education. The approximately 3-hour course consists of 6 contexts including simple hands-on experiments. In addition to the conception and implementation, empirical research will also be conducted to determine which suitable criteria can be established for a successful transformation and to what extent it has an impact on the participants ` expert knowledge of the problem as well as their environmental awareness.