New M.Ed. students from around South Africa and Namibia arrived at the ELRC this week to start a course in environment and sustainability education. Staff and post-docs joined the students for a workshop on the commodity chain of the plastic bottle.

After finding information about the processes and inputs that result in this everyday item,  post-doc Experencia Jalasi says “I have decided to use the same plastic water bottles I have and never to buy another one for the whole year … I knew how bad the plastics are but the amount of energy used in the production touched me so much, as my PhD was all about conserving energy”. On Friday students will evaluate the commodity chain analysis as an educational activity. This will form the introduction to a session on evaluating environment and sustainability education. These and other experiences during this first week of contact time, will help students decide in the research project they want to undertake during their course.