Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to what is our third lesson in the design and technology textiles unit of work.

My name is Mr. Wicken, and it's great to see you here again today in our lesson.

In today's lesson, we're going to look at actually how textiles can become more sustainable and kinder to the environment around us.

This is such a crucial thing that we need to be aware of in today's society, and something that the textiles industry can really help to alleviate some of the concerns that we have going forward.

So, let's have a look at today's learning objectives.

As always, if you haven't yet got the intro quiz done, if you pause the video here, go and get that finished for me, and then we'll carry on.

Great.

So, let's have a look at the learning objectives for today's lesson.

The first learning objective is actually what is fast fashion? And how is that damaging to the environment? That's going to be a really interesting conversation we're going to have.

Next, we're going to look into how textiles can be more sustainable, a really crucial area that is massively important for the whole textiles industry moving forward over the next 10, 20, even 30 years.

Then we're going to look into the future of sustainable textiles and actually what is happening now, and you're going to do a little design task around it.

And as always, we're going to finish off with the exit quiz, just to conclude our learning from today's lesson.

Now, as always, to be successful in our lesson, we need to make sure we've got the right equipment, so, if you haven't got these things, pause the video in a moment and then go and grab them, But you need to have an exercise book or some bits of paper, either, doesn't matter.

As long as you've got those to hand, that'll be great.

You're also going to need a pen.

Make sure it's working and comfortable to use.

Doesn't matter about the colour, but you're also going to need a computer or a tablet, something that's an internet-enabled device, just for some of the work we're going to look into at a later point in this lesson.

So pause the video here now if you haven't got those bits of equipment to hand.

Great.

So, let's go and have a look at the keywords in today's lesson.

We've got two keywords we're going to look at, so we're going to start with the first one, which is sustainable.

So, I'm going to say it, and you're going to repeat it.

So, sustainable.

Sustainable.

Sustainable.

Great.

So, you may have heard this word before, but may not have an understanding as to what the word means, but sustainable basically is an ecological balance, as an unusual ecological balance to avoid depleting our natural resources.

And what we mean by that is by actually allowing us to use the natural resources we have available, but at the same time, making sure that they are there for future generations to be able to come back and reuse the same time.

The whole idea of, if you cut one tree down, you then cut say two or three in its place is a sustainable model.

Because what that means is for every one tree that you're cutting down, you're planting three or however many in its place, which means over the time that they grow, you're actually going to have more trees available.

So it's a sustainable source of material.

The other word that we're going to look into is recycled.

So let's say that recycle, recycle, recycle.

Now I'm absolutely certain you've heard of this word but just to be clear let's make sure we understand the definition.

So it means to actually convert any waste material that we have be that paper, plastic, whatever into a reusable material for new products.

So I'm sure at home, you have recycling that you put out each week for the dustman or every other week or how many times you do it a month and that recycling gets taken away.

And those materials then broken down and reused for other products.

So we are reusing those materials.

So it's a cylindrical format so that we are not just having to keep going back and getting new materials every time we're reusing those things to be far, far far kinder to the environment.

So with the keywords now looked into let's go and have a look at our first learning objective for today's lesson.

So our first learning objective in today's lesson is what is fast fashion? So lets have a look at what actually is.

Fast fashion is a term that has been coined to describe clothes that are designed very quickly, and they move from what is the cat walks and those fashion shows that you see in London and Paris and Milan and New York, whatever but they design them for those catwalks and very quickly they get them into the store.

And then they're sold to us as members of the public which is great.

But the thing is that those clothes very quickly go out of style and fashion.

You have usually a spring, summer fashion then you have autumn winter fashion and then it'll go back round to spring.

And every new season there'll be new clothes that come out, which then means that the old clothes either have to be reduced or thrown away, which is really bad for the environment because it's just wasting materials, but also us as consumers go and buy those clothes very quickly again.

So we might have a T-shirt for one year.

Then the next year we throw that T-shirt away.

We're going to get a new one because of the designs change.

And actually this is only being further increased the speed of fast fashion through the increased use of online shopping.

I will pull my hand up and say, I absolutely buy my clothes and that lots of other products online.

And the ease of doing that is just you don't even think about it but actually going out to the shops and buying the clothes is a little bit more effort than just going onto an app and just clicking a button it's done.

And I'm pretty sure you're just as bad as me or your parents are.

I'm almost certain, and this is not great because we're just reusing a lots of resources that we just don't have available.

So when did you last get some new clothes or shoes to wear? Pause the video here now quickly and have a think.

When did you last buy some clothes? Okay so when was the last time you bought some clothes? Right okay, well, I'll be honest.

I bought some new clothes only last week.

Actually if I think about those clothes that I bought are very nice.

Don't get me wrong.

They look really good, but did I actually need to buy them? I think I might've been drawn in to just being able to easily buy those things and what a surprise I bought them online.

So fast fashion is usually worn fast.

I, we wear it and then we very quickly, after a few times of wearing it, we throw it away.

And as I've sort of spoken about, this is unsustainable.

What that means is we're using those resources.

And very often we don't recycling those clothes in piece of clothing.

We actually send them to landfill and they just going to stay there for years and years and years damaging the environment, these clothes that we received, Actually, how long will you keep them for? I want you to think about it, those clothes that you've just bought or some clothes that you've bought, maybe not that long ago.

How long are you actually going to keep them for? Pause the video and have a think about it or discuss it see with somebody.

Right so how long do you think you're going to keep those pieces of clothing for? Interesting.

So if I think about me, actually, I'll keep the piece of the clothing for little while, but actually I know that if it doesn't necessarily look that good on me anymore or the colours have gone out of fashion or maybe the cut of the piece of clothing doesn't look quite right, it's not up to date.

I'm probably going to throw it away.

Now I do try as best as I can to set it to a recycling bank or a charity shop.

But actually I don't always I do very often just throw things in the bin and that's really bad for the environment.

Here are some key facts about fast fashion that actually really brings it home.

It takes 700 gallons of water 700 gallons of water to manufacture one cotton T-shirt, that's a huge amount of water.

And if you think about it there are people in the world today who actually don't have access to drinking water but actually just to make that one cotton T-shirt for you or for me take 700 gallons of water that could be better used.

It takes about 80 years for the clothes that you and me are probably sent to landfill to actually degrade and breakdown.

So like you see with the leaves that happen on the floor in the autumn and winter months where they degrade down and get absorbed into the ground actually those T-shirts, whatever it might be, jeans they'll sit there for a good 80 years.

That's a long time.

And the fashion industry contributes a whopping 10% of the global toxic emissions that are admitted.

That's a huge amount.

That's massive.

And that emissions that are given off it's just damaging our environment.

So we've really got to stop and think about this fast fashion and actually, is it right for us? Should we be just buying things and then throwing them away so quickly? So that brings me onto the first activity.

There are many benefits and drawbacks to fast fashion.

You know, there is benefits to the fast fashion but we get nice clothes and they look cool and they're up to date, but we need to actually balance them.

It's important that we explore these and discuss them in detail.

So I want you to answer the questions on the worksheet that I'm going to show you on the next slide, ask yourself and any other members in your household that are available.

Actually, what is the justified answer to the fast fashion questions that put? So here is the worksheet.

There is a series of six questions that I want you to go through and answer either on your own or with somebody in your household to talk about fast fashion.

It might be somebody in your house that actually buys more clothes than you.

That they're probably going to be the right person to have a chat about with this.

So go through and fill in this worksheet as best as you can.

So pause the video here now, go and get the worksheet and go and get those questions answered on fast fashion "cause I think it's going to really make you think about actually, whether this is good or bad for us.

Good luck, welcome back.

And I hope that by arching those questions on fast fashion, you've got a really good understanding now of that whole area of the textiles industry and what the drawbacks but also some of the benefits are to it.

Let's have a look at our next learning objective for today's lesson and that is how can textiles become more sustainable? So those issues that we've just spoken about with fast fashion, actually, how can textiles be far, far better for the environment? So we need to think about three RS and these three RS are important to designing anything in the textiles industry.

The first one is reduce.

The second one is reuse and the third one is recycle.

Now I'm absolutely certain you've probably heard of all three of those words before but maybe not thought about it in the context of textile products and what we can do as consumers to reduce, reuse or recycle those bits of clothing.

So let's have a look at each one of those in a little bit more detail.

The first one is reduce.

Actually, what we need to do as a society is reduce the amount of clothing that we are buying.

We just spoke about actually fast fashion is too quick.

Really we need to slow it down.

We need to be steady paced fashion or slow fashion, not fast fashion.

And actually we need to think more often that do we need to really go buy that piece of clothing there.

And then I'm definitely, as I've said, guilty of doing it and I need to really stop and think in future to do I need to buy this? So the question that I've got is is it worth stopping and thinking about whether we can wear what we have instead of buying more? I mean, you just stop.

I want you to pause the video and have a think actually do we need to go and buy new pieces of clothing all the time? The best example is football T-shirts.

Every year football team will bring out a new design for their T-shirt with new sponsors on the new cars, but actually do we need to do that? Is it good for the environment? Pause the video and have a think.

Okay, So you've had a chance have a little think about that and hopefully you've come to the realisation that actually is probably not right that we just buy so much all the time and we need to reduce the amount we're buying and actually start to reuse those things more often which brings me nicely onto the next point re use.

And that's the thing, isn't it? That we're reducing the amount that we're buying and we're actually, we're reusing that clothing for a much longer period of time.

But the other thing is actually we could take that clothing and reuse it for different purposes.

That might be that actually it's passed down to another family member, nothing wrong with that or it's sent to a charity shop, which is great.

Or actually you could take that piece of clothing.

And if you're feeling confident, you could break it down and actually rebuild it into a different product.

That would be a really good idea, instead of taking it just to the charity shop or to a recycling centre, whatever it might be, actually you take that T-shirt and you cut it up and you make it into a reusable bag.

What a fantastic idea because you're then reusing that fabric that's already been manufactured for a different purpose.

So the question is, when did you last send any of your old clothes or anyone in your household Send it to the charity shop? pause the video here and go and ask.

when was the last time you did it? Okay welcome back.

Now hopefully somebody in the household has been sending your old clothes to a charity shop because not only does that mean that we'll be using those clothes by somebody else buying them but also we're supporting local charities which is brilliant.

It's a win-win for all.

We save wasting materials.

We are being cleaner to the environment but also we are providing money for a charity.

Fantastic.

That's just what we should be doing.

And the last one of the three RS is recycle.

So even if we can't reduce or reuse, for whatever reason we need to make sure that we're recycling those bits of clothing.

And actually by recycling we might feed to a recycling centre.

We might take it to some of that can actually take that fabric and use it for a different purpose but we need to make sure actually that we're recycling.

Now not all clothing can be easily recycled.

So here's the question.

How could we make recycle clothing much easier? How could we make it far easier for us to recycle our clients pause the video and think.

Welcome back.

So actually I'm sure there's loads of really interesting ways that we could make recycling more easily but we need to think about some of the materials we're using.

I think definitely more recycled points would be really helpful.

And this brings me on to our task for this section.

You will have many different bits of clothing in your household.

I'm absolutely certain, and I want you to choose two bits of clothing and what I want you to do using the worksheet.

I'm going to show in a second is I want you to explain how those two bits of clothing could actually be reused in different ways.

And when I say reuse, I actually mean like I use as an example, taking a T-shirt and cutting it up and making it into a different product, like a bag.

And you need to make sure that when you are redesigning these things you are showing to me and yourself in those designs a really good reusable idea for that piece of clothing not just something for the sake of it but actually it has a purpose.

So this is the worksheet.

You're going to put your two bits of clothing in the first couple of boxes.

And then I want you to go along each row redesigning that product for a different purpose.

So I want you to pause the video here now and grab the worksheet.

And then I want you to choose two bits of clothing at home right now.

And I want you to come up for each one of those pieces of clothing two different ways in which they could be re used.

Good luck.

see you in a bit welcome back.

And I hope you came up with some really interesting designs to reuse those two bits of clothing that you selected from your range of clothing at home.

Now let's have a look at our last learning objective for today's lesson and that is the future of sustainable textiles.

So more companies these days have completely understood and realise the impact of the textile products that they're making actually is having on the world around us.

And they are making pledges to ensure that whatever they're designing and manufacturing and selling to us as consumers is not only kinder but more sustainable to the environment which is exactly what we need.

We need to make sure that what they are designing and selling to us as consumers is kinder and far more sustainable to the environment and the world around us.

So brands such as H&M adidas and asos are ensuring that when they're designing products in their design studios that when they design those products now that they are ensuring that actually at the heart of what they're coming up with they are an environmentally friendly design company.

So that means that they are using materials that are organic which actually means that it's far kind of the environment.

Things like organic cotton is far kinder to the environment than just say cotton because the way in which the cotton plant is grown but that also then means it's reducing the impact that it's having on the world around us.

Additionally, a lot of these companies like H&M asos and adidas are actually offering a way in which you can recycle their clothes again but also that their manufacturing clothes and their products from a hundred percent recycled materials.

So they're allowing you to recycle them but also making things from recycled materials which again means that the future of our textiles product is far more sustainable than it was say 2,3,5,10 or may years ago which is great.

And as we move forward in time more and more companies will do exactly the same.

They will allow us to recycle the products easier but also sell us products that are made from recycled materials already.

Now there's an example that I want to just go over very quickly, which is Hylo athletics their trainers that you can see in the picture here are made from natural materials.

So everything that you see on there from the sole to the actual shoe body itself to the laces are made from natural and well sourced.

That's important as well, materials, which means that it's far kinder, but also safer to the environment.

So why the question is, and I want you to pause everything about why is Hylo athletics actually made their trainers using natural materials instead of say plastics? For example that are made from polymers that we learned about in a previous lesson.

pause the video here.

And then we have a chat in a second.

Okay, Now you've had time to have a little think about it.

There's really key things in that by allowing the trainers to be made from a natural material.

It means that those materials that have been sourced have already come from a natural area of the world not something that we have created an involuntary.

So if we go back to our previous lessons learned about natural and synthetic fibres here we are talking about natural fibres as opposed to synthetic fibres.

What it also means is that these materials are fast, more sustainable but also kind to the environment, which is great.

That's exactly what we want to be having in our trainer design.

So I want you to pause the video here in a moment because what I want you to do is, and where I'm taking the designs that you came up with last lesson when we were looking at smart and modern fibres and I want you to take the design that you've come up with and I want you to keep that modern and smart feature in it but I want you to redesign it a little bit further.

I want you to incorporate now something that makes your design, that you came up with last lessons whatever the product is more sustainable.

It needs to be kinder to the environment and the world around us.

So you've got the modern and the smart textile in there, which is great.

And we want to leave that in there but I want you to also add a second element now to it which is that the actual design that you're coming up with is to the environment either it's made from recycled materials, or it can be easily recycled or whatever it might be is up to you.

So pause the video here, get your designs.

And I want you to add that feature now to it.

welcome back.

And I hope you had lots of fun adding in that different design element to what you came up with in our last lesson which is now that a design you've created but only has modern and smart fibres built in but also that the design has been created to be far more sustainable and environmentally friendly which is great really well done.

And that's it for our lesson today.

Thank you so much for being here as always we've learned a great deal about actually how we can ensure things within the textiles industry is far more sustainable.

We've understood what fast fashion is and what the issues are around it how things can be more sustainable within the textiles industry but also you can now see the future of sustainable textiles that are being sold to you and me.

As always I would love to see the work that you've been creating in our lesson today.

And if you can get your parents to take some photos of the work, and if they're happy to share it online that will be great and make sure they use the @LearnwithOak.

I look forward to seeing you in our next lesson, take care see you soon Bye-bye.