14-6-2024
It has been quiet for a while from our side. Not because there was nothing to report, but because we were busy. Last week we (finally) could get back to work. Not all students have started the new school year yet. For the new freshmen (both bachelor and master), enrolments are still ongoing. They will start only in July. MBA students (both years of study) also start in July. But the second- and third-year undergraduates started their new academic year on 3 June, as did the second-year master's students.
A programme was also put together for us. We had proposed three-hour sessions per group. We will visit a number of different departments in the coming weeks with these sessions. In these, we will address the state of the world, and how we as humans need to start looking at our earth -and how we interact with it- differently. The way we are treating this planet now, we are draining this globe, like a pack of hungry vampires. And before long, we will have drained it completely. In doing so, we are also making our own chances of long-term survival nil.
For how to look upon the world differently, we will use Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics model, and go into a circular society. After that, the students are given an assignmetnt, to think of solutions in small groups.
We got to work with students in the chemistry department last week. We had two groups of undergraduates, as it is called here (bachelor students) and one group of postgraduates (master students). Of course, we were quite excited. We had divided tasks and made preparations, with a slight emphasis on chemistry aspects of environmental pollution. We were especially curious to see how the students would deal with the assignment we had for them: come up with solutions to (environmental) problems; this could be on a personal level, or on a city, country or global scale, and place them in the doughnut we hung on the wall.
We were exhilirated after the first day, but even more so after three days! The students found the quiz we started the session with spicy but fun. The lecture on what is going wrong in the world was tough (but so is the topic). But the discussion in groups, to come up with solutions, was taken very seriously. It was funny to notice that none of the groups were keen to be the first to stick a post-it on the wall. Students here are not used to being allowed to go around the classroom on their own initiative. But once a few yellow notes were posted, new arrivals followed in rapid succession.
To discuss the solutions, we had the student in charge explain their solution in front of the group and asked a few critical questions. We had three very different groups, both in terms of composition and group size, but afterwards the students were as enthusiastic as we were. We even got an impromptu thank-you speech twice. Now that the we've had our first trials, we will continue in good spirits. Next week, we will visit the BBA and the journalism department.
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