Trash to treasure: Integrating environmental awareness into university curriculum

Abstract

Over the last decade, educators around the world have paid increasing attention to raising public awareness of the need to make concerted efforts to provide a sustainable future for this planet. Many scientists and eco-activists have done a lot to develop public environmental consciousness using different educational tools. This paper discusses integrating environmental awareness into academic curriculum. It analyses the introduction of an environmental component to the English for the Media course offered at St Petersburg University. The experimental study was conducted for three semesters: in the spring semester of 2019 (February-May 2019), the fall semester of the same year (September-December 2019) and the spring semester of 2020 (February-May 2020). It involved 65 first-and second-year journalism students. Media professionals are responsible for changing the way people look at the environment. Project-based learning helps students to expand their environmental repertoires such as shaping public perception of ‘green consumerism’ as a fashionable trend. The growing awareness of environmental issues requires shaping consumer's mindfulness about obliteration and depletion of natural resources through irresponsible activities. The trash-to-treasure and eco-comics projects are lightweight, exciting and effective tools of raising environmental awareness in future media practitioners and enhancing their scientific writing skills. Using these skills journalists can make their environmental messages accessible to a broader public.