Sustainability Education for Young Children: Introductory Life Cycle Assessment

This ‘Research to Practice’ paper presents a “work-in-progress” pilot and evaluation of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) workshop aimed at elementary school children. LCA is a standardized methodology used to quantitatively assess sustainability. Although it is typically introduced to children at high school, introducing younger children to LCA can support them in developing systems-thinking around sustainability and encourage more sustainable lifestyles. Using a bicycle and a paper cup as examples, children are introduced to this methodology via a workshop. This pilot involved 110 children (8–10 years old) from 7 schools in North-East England. The effectiveness of the workshop was evaluated through a post-workshop worksheet which investigated children's knowledge gain, behavior change and enjoyment through Likert-scale and open questions. Most children (92%) enjoyed the workshop and demonstrated knowledge gain by highlighting that they know what LCA is (79%) and recalling environmental impact categories (58%), a key feature of the LCA methodology. Children demonstrated potential behavior change by identifying ways they would change daily activities (51 %), looking to learn more (11 %) or influencing the actions of others (3 %). Next steps for this work-in-progress include further evaluation using different methodologies to explore longer term gains from the workshop and developing and piloting a similarly-themed workshop for children aged 7 - 8 years old.