Creative reuse: The impact artmaking has on raising environmental consciousness

Abstract

Education for Sustainability (EfS) seeks to initiate ways of preserving our planet beyond this current generation. Visual arts teachers can facilitate the students’ imagination to cultivate sustainable attitudes and behaviours. This research investigates whether 12 year olds would question their ecological footprint if they creatively reuse discarded materials in their artmaking. Engaging in activities with a sustainability focus, they recognized the power that aesthetic transformation has on discarded materials, triggering shifts in their attitudes and making connections between their actions and their impact on the ecosphere. This research has implications for teaching EfS, in that the power of aesthetic transformation through creative reuse has the capacity to invite reflection to motivate children to make environmentally sustainable choices.