Pedagogical toolkit : How the value of repair can be increased through resilience

Sammanfattning: In today’s society we buy, use and throw things away which has made waste an environmental problem which affects our planet negatively. To prevent further development of consumerism, sustainable movements must be made where society must climb up the ladder of waste hierarchy and start to integrate in preventing the production of waste. One way to manage and prevent waste is through changed consumer practices that encourage repair. As it seems the discussion about repair is a missing part in the Swedish structure about waste management. It is not a part of what children are being taugt and it is not a part of the ongoing discussion about environmental issues. The purpose with this thesis is to plant a seed of change among children and bring back the mindset where humanity integrate with the planet. The research question for this thesis is: “how can the value of repair be increased through resilience among children who are the future influencers?”. Through my research and methodology I decided to design a prototype of a pedagogical toolkit for kindergarten consisting of storytelling through a book and an interactive product. As a part of the design process, a workshop was performed where the core concept of my toolkit was tried out at a kindergarten. The workshop resulted in good management from the children of the content of the story and the interactive product. A pluralistic discussion about how they could help the main character Julia with the broken chair in relation to waste management occurred. The children were “nudged” through the story in the decisision making towards repair, which was the option they choosed. The prototype of my toolkit might not at this stage have resulted in actual increased knowledge about waste hierarchy and prevention of waste. However, according to my opinionen it has contribuited to an increased discussion about repair at the local place where I had my workshop. Hopefully the toolkit has started a thinking process in those children’s mindset and something new within the pedagogical aspects as regards sustainability and waste management. The value of repair can be increased through a pedagogical toolkit consisting of storytelling and an interactive part. Through my prototype of the toolkit a discussion about repair at local level has started. How this project will be developed will be left to the unknown and future explorations of the matter.