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During her PhD at the Freudenthal Institute, chemistry teacher developed sustainability-focused teaching materials for high school students. These lessons encourage students to think critically about the life cycle of plastics and the environmental impact of chemical processes related to plastics. To test her materials, she piloted them in her own classroom.

“My mother once told me that I always looked very serious when we talked about research, but my face would light up when I discussed education,” laughs, sitting behind her laptop in her classroom at the Scala College in Alphen aan den Rijn. A blackboard is visible behind her. She hesitated for a long time before starting a PhD program, as she thought research wasn't for her. Instead, she became a chemistry teacher. “I love explaining things to people. I already gave private lessons and exam training during my studies, so the step into teaching was very logical.”

Sustainability in chemistry education

After one year of teaching, Gjalt Prins, assistant professor at the Freudenthal Institute, asked De Waard if she wanted to pursue a PhD alongside her teaching. “He asked if I wanted to research sustainability in chemistry lessons. At first, I thought that was nothing for me at all,” she laughs. “My heart was in organic chemistry, and sustainability seemed like a boring topic. But I did realise that it is an important issue.” She eventually agreed and started an eight-year PhD project in which she investigated how chemistry can contribute to developing sustainable thinking among students. And: during her PhD, she grew to love the subject.

Bioplastics and fossil plastics

In the lessons that De Waard developed during her PhD, students work on a sustainability challenge related to plastics. By comparing the life cycles of bioplastics and fossil plastics, they not only learn which substances are needed for the production of these materials, but also how much energy is involved and what waste streams are generated during their degradation. In addition to focusing on chemical processes, the lessons also provide space to think about the ethical and socioeconomic aspects of plastic production. “Chemistry could benefit from paying more attention to this,” De Waard believes. “Ultimately, we want students to learn to critically examine their own opinions so that they can refine and adjust them. This gives them insight into the impact of chemical processes on nature.”

During the lessons, students continually grapple with the question of which plastics are more sustainable: bioplastics or fossil plastics? According to De Waard, the answer to this question is more complicated than many people initially think, and she hopes her lessons will show students just how complex chemical processes can be in practice. “To investigate the life cycle of a plastic, students have to make choices – for example, do you also include the emissions from transporting the plastic as part of the life cycle? And what about the transportation of raw materials?” Students work with real scientific data, gaining practical experience in analysing such issues.

Students not only learn which substances are needed for the production of plastics, but also how much energy is involved and what waste streams are generated during their degradation

Combining teaching and research

“Combining teaching and research was challenging but incredibly rewarding,” says De Waard. She believes that unexperienced teachers need more time to prepare lessons and master the subject matter. That's why she worked long days at first, but there were also advantages to teaching and doing a PhD at the same time: because she was both a teacher and a researcher, she had direct contact with other teachers that could immediately test her ideas in practice.

Her experience in education also helped her to assess the needs and desires of other teachers. “Some ideas that emerged from the research seemed great in theory, but I could often immediately say: ‘this takes too long’. I know how busy teachers are, and if you want teaching materials to be actually used, they have to be either brief or easily combined with existing teaching methods", she explains.

Long-term impact

De Waard is now primarily wondering to what extent her lessons actually lead to behavioral changes among students. “One student said that he used to always bring a plastic bottle to school, but now asked his parents for a reusable Dopper bottle.” Nevertheless, she believes that sustainability needs to be more broadly integrated into school subjects to truly influence students’ long-term behaviour. “Sustainability is a crucial issue, and ideally, every subject should take responsibility for it.”

If you want teaching materials to be actually used, they have to be either brief or easily combined with existing methods