Topic: sustainability, fashion, fast fashion, fashion footprint
Level: B2, B2+, C1, C2
Objectives:
- to develop students’ listening, reading and speaking skills
- to develop their knowledge about sustainability and pollution
- to develop students’ critical thinking skills
- to develop students’ researching and analytical skills
- to develop students’ communicative and argumentative skills
- to encourage eco-conscious behaviour
Equipment and material needed: video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiSYoeqb_VY, a worksheet for each student, https://learningapps.org/display?v=poduv9kbj20 ; https://www.liveworksheets.com/pf187776zp, https://www.thredup.com/fashionfootprint, wifi, smartphone or laptop for each pair
Activity sequence:
1. Warmer
Personalisation – Ask your students to discuss these questions, then, ask for some feedback.
1. How would you characterize your relationship with clothes? How important are clothes to you?
2. How often do you buy clothes? When was the last time you bought a clothing item?
3. What do you take into consideration when you buy a clothing item? (e.g. necessity, fashion, status, the environment)
2. Prediction
Here you can see some facts about the fashion industry. Could you predict the numbers in them? Please underline the correct solution.
ONLINE TIP
If you want your students to work online, here’s an interactive exercise that goes with it: https://www.liveworksheets.com/pf187776zp
The fashion industry produces 2/5/10 % of all humanity’s carbon emissions and is the first/second/third-largest consumer of the world’s water supply.
It takes about 500/700/900 gallons of water to produce one cotton shirt. That’s enough water for one person to drink at least eight cups per day for three-and-a-half years.
It takes about 550/1400/2000 gallons of water to produce a pair of jeans. That’s more than enough for one person to drink eight cups per day for 10 years.
In Europe, fashion companies went from an average offering of two collections per year in 2000 to five in 2011. Some brands offer even more. Zara puts out 15/20/24 collections per year, while H&M offers between 12 and 16.
30/55/85% of all textiles go to the dump each year. The equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second/minute/hour.
Washing clothes, meanwhile, releases 500,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean each year — the equivalent of 50 thousand/million/billion plastic bottles.
Sources: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/fashion-industry-carbon-unsustainable-environment-pollution/
Check the answers with the group and then ask them to say which fact they found most shocking.
3. Pre-watching activity
Do you know what these words mean?
garment, to irrigate, pesticide, insecticide, carcinogenic, ecosystem, contamination
Students discuss the meanings with a partner and then you can clarify them together.
4. Play the video for the first time and then ask them to put the different life phases into a T-shirt into the right order.
ONLINE TIP - If you’d like your students to do this activity online, here’s an interactive exercise that goes with it: https://learningapps.org/10801592
______ The T-shirt is sold
______ The finished T-shirts travel by ship, train and truck to be sold in high-income countries
______ The cotton bales are shipped to a spinning facility
______ The fabric is treated with heat and chemicals until they turn soft and white
______ The finished cloth travels to factories often in Bangladesh, China or Turkey where workers stich them up into T-shirts
______ The yarns are sent to mills, where they are woven into sheets of greyish fabric
______ The fabric is dipped into bleaches and azo dyes
______ The balls are separated from the seeds
______ The machines blend, card, comb, pull, stretch and finally twist the cotton into snowy ropes of yarn
______ In the consumer’s home, the T-shirt is washed several times
5. Watch the video again and take notes on in what ways the different stations in the life cycle of a t-shirt are harmful for the environment/people.
Growing cotton:
Creating fabrics:
Manufacturing t-shirts:
T-shirts travelling from factories to the shops:
Washing t-shirts:
6. Discussion questions - Ask your students to answer these questions with a partner and then report back to the class.
2. What do you think would make people change their clothes shopping habits?
3. Take the quiz here and find out about your fashion footprint:
Did you find anything surprising about your habits? How do you score compared to the rest of the world?
ONLINE TIP: Ask your students to record their answers and share them on a collaborative space. Then, ask them to listen to each other's answers and comment on them.
7. The 6 Rs of fashion – Ask your students to fill in the article extract with useful guidelines with its labels.
rent, replace, repurpose, reclaim, repair, restyle
1. _________________- Turn old socks into puppets or toys for your pet iguana. Shred that worn-out “I climbed the CN Tower for WWF” shirt into cleaning cloths.
2. _________________ -Remember the wool sweater you accidentally felted by putting it in the dryer? Cut off the sleeves and you’ll have stylish leg warmers – or make DIY Sweater Mittens!
3. _________________ - Pass on your treasures by organizing a clothing swap with friends or neighbours. Buy and sell clothes at a consignment or thrift shop.
4. _________________- Dust off your grandmother’s darning egg and fix those holey socks tucked in the back of your drawer. Online DIY videos can walk you through a range of clothing repairs.
5. _________________ - Don’t just add a new piece of clothing to your closet. Choose a languishing item already there, replace it with your new find – then use the first four Rs to send old clothes on a new journey.
6. _________________- Rather than buy a new outfit for a special occasion, consider renting. A number of online stores offer this service.
10-minute phone slot
You have 10 minutes to research one of the above-mentioned ideas. Your task is to find out about the possibilities you have in your area (e.g. How can you recycle your clothes? Where could you drop them off once you don’t need them anymore? How could you repair your clothes? Where would you take them? Can you find any cool second-hand shops in your area? Are there any places where you can swap your clothes?)
When finished, report back your ideas to your classmates.
ONLINE TIP: Ask your students to record their answers and share them on a collaborative space. Then, ask them to listen to each other's answers and comment on them. Alternatively, you can ask them to present their ideas to their classmates in the form of a presentation or a sales pitch.
Option 1 -
Where do your clothes come from? What are they made of? Have a look at the clothing items you are wearing at the moment and try to look up where the materials came from and who was working on them. Could you have bought these items if you were paid as much as those people working on your clothes? Then, report back your findings to your group mates in a 3-minute presentation.
Option 2 -
What’s your favourite clothing brand? What do you know about their eco-conscious behaviour? Pick a company and investigate into their sustainability policy. Then, report back your findings in a short presentation.
Spend at least 10 minutes on this website and then talk about what you found out about your consumption habits to a group mate in the next lesson.