Designed for Life - In conversation with Helen O'Sullivan

This episode of Designed for Life follows the journey of a teacher who from day one of her career has worked tirelessly to make sustainability and conversation around this critical topic the very centre of her classroom practice. Introduced at a very young age to the concept of making her own clothes by her nan, Helen has always been motivated by the need to conserve resources and not buy into consumerist fashion trends. Helen has come to education and learning as a mature student following an underwhelming experience at school as a student. The fact that she has just started a PhD is testament to the progress that she has made both personally and professionally over the last eight years. On joining her school (Penryheol Comprehensive School, Swansea) she immediately set about introducing elements of sustainable thinking to her textiles classroom. Supported by an open-minded Head of Department this work has spread across all aspects of the departments work with the seventeen UN sustainability goals providing a framework for learning in D&T. The introduction of the new Curriculum for Wales provided the opportunity for the school senior team to look at best-practice within the department and explore how this might influence the wider curriculum and whole school planning.Helen has involved her students in outreach work, has recently started a PhD at Portsmouth University in the faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries, looking at how sustainability can work better in primary schools through organised parental/family workshops. She has also been involved in the Chariocity Project instigated by the Centre for Circular Design https://www.circulardesign.org.uk/research/chariocity/So if you ever wondered just how engaged young people can be in involving themselves in the worlds sustainability issues, then sit back, plug those earphones in and listen to Designed for Life - In conversation with Helen O'Sullivan. Teachers can access free resources for Helen's projects and standalone activities (inc the garment worker profiles and SDG passport) from the SustFashWales Education pages on the website here: https://sustfashwales.org/education/ (primary is in progress, but there are resources on KS3 already).This podcast has been recorded with the help of our sponsors, The Edge Foundation https://www.edge.co.uk/ inspiring the education system to give all young people across the UK the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to flourish in their future life and work, and PTC Onshape Providing industry-standard cloud-based CAD to education  https://www.ptc.com/en/news/2020/ptc-onshape-education-enterprise-plan-available-free-of-chargeWe are indebted to both The Edge and PTC Onshape for their continued support. 

Om Podcasten

This is the official podcast of the Design and Technology Association. 'Designed for life' aims to entertain, inform and inspire, bringing the worlds of business and industry together. Design and Technology is a wide-ranging curriculum subject that, along with qualifications in other facilitating subjects, can open doors to students across an ever-increasing breadth of career. England was the first country in the world to introduce this subject to its mainstream curriculum offer in 1988. Where we led others, have followed and in various guises, it is now taught in countries around the world including India, Australia, China, USA, France and Finland. This podcast consists of a series of short, informal conversations with people from across the worlds of education, industry and design. The intention is to help to link business, industry and education, as the solutions to tomorrows problems are being educated today!