WHY DID WE DEVELOP THIS EDUCATION TOOLKIT?

Fashion is one of the most polluting and energy-intensive industries in the world, affecting everything from our land and water to the air that we breathe and our warming climate. In fact, the fashion industry alone is responsible for around 10% of global carbon emissions. Yet we are buying more and more clothes, wearing them less, and throwing them away faster, with 87% of all materials used to make our clothes going to landfill, and only 1% being recycled into new clothes.

We believe that educating young citizens is critical to accelerating change in consumer behaviour and fighting against climate change. We also want to spark passion in young people to demand better systems and better products and for a more sustainable future.

WHAT DO WE WANT TO ACHIEVE?

This education toolkit aims to help teachers ignite conversations around issues like production, consumption and waste in the classroom, and to encourage students to think critically about their clothes across their whole lifecycle – how we design them; how we make them; how we use them; and what we do with them when we no longer want them.

By introducing students to these issues, as well as to alternative ways of thinking, making and doing, we hope to inspire students to take an active role in driving change, whether it be in their own consumption habits, at their school, in their local communities, or in their future careers.

WHO IS THIS EDUCATION TOOLKIT FOR?

This education toolkit is designed for teachers and students at both the primary and secondary levels.

It is specifically designed to be relevant to teachers and students from a range of curriculums and disciplines from social studies to language & arts to maths, science and design & technology. We believe that fashion, and its impact on the environment, is by nature an interdisciplinary subject.

The toolkit was intentionally developed to allow teachers flexibility in the content and resources they choose to use in their classrooms. It is also designed to be a research toolkit that students can access and use independently, either as part of a class project, or for their own personal research.

DESIGNED TOGETHER WITH TEACHERS

We created this education toolkit in close consultation with the end users. From the outset, we worked with teachers and curriculum advisors from the English Schools Foundation, the Education Bureau, and our wider network of schools, who helped us to understand how best to create it to support current curriculums, pedagogies and teacher and student-learning needs.

HOW TO USE THIS EDUCATION TOOLKIT

We created this set of guidelines especially for teachers, empowering them to make the best use of this toolkit’s educational resources. These guidelines include introductions to the resources, along with explanations on how to use them effectively; you’ll also find sample questions to help guide students and ideas for cross-subject class activities, including social studies, language & arts, maths, science and design & technology.

The platform is supported by a Resource Library with additional resources such as vocabulary, facts & infographics, picture books, videos, photos and news articles. These resources were carefully chosen by the Redress team to provide more context and learning opportunities for teachers and students around the issues covered on this platform. Explore our Resource Library.

GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK!

We created this education toolkit to be something that is constantly and consistently updated. We would love to hear your feedback about using this toolkit as part of your lesson planning or in the classroom. We also want to hear about other ways that you choose to excite and motivate the students you work with about environmental issues and climate change.