Sustainable consumption, Technische Universität Berlin (since 2009)
- Program: undergraduate teacher training for the school subject ‘Wirtschaft-Arbeit-Technik’ [Economy-Work-Technology] (compulsory since 2015); also open for other students e.g. of ‘Sustainable Management’ or ‘Culture and Technology’
- Duration: one semester, 15 weeks, two-hour seminar/week, 3-5 ECTS
- Focus: stimulate interest in SC, basic understanding of (un)sustainable consumption, provide an impulse for ‘education for sustainable consumption’ and motivate individual contributions towards SC
- Approach: ‘action learning’; draws from PERL resources, including the LOLA approach (looking for likely alternatives); includes study trips (e.g. to an organic farm) and guest speakers.
- Student evaluation: group presentation of analysed LOLA projects (some documented in German here: www.aloenk.tu-
berlin.de/menue/lehre/lola_ projekte); didactical reflection for future teachers, reflection on a study trip for other students - Course evaluation: generally positive; available in German
- Reading list: available; dominated by German texts; also works by T. Jackson
- Novel aspects: course introduction available as an online lecture; includes a simulation game; relies on mainly self-organized learning by documenting and participating in sustainability projects
Several other courses are offered related to sustainable consumption, including Consumer Policy, Ecology of Nutrition, Evaluation of Technology and Ethics, among others.
