Trash: The Science and Ethics of Consumption
Trash: The Science and Ethics of Consumptions is an integrated humanities and chemistry project. On the humanities side students study philosophical ethics and contemporary problems related to overconsumption. They analyze and evaluate three ethical perspectives - utilitarianism, libertarianism, and egalitarianism - before developing philosophical arguments that most closely align to their own perspective. The end results is a student created website that investigates how one of the three ethical perspectives could be applied to solve environmental and social problems resulting from overconsumption. On the chemistry side, the site explores how green chemistry could be used to address the environmental impact of overconsumption.
For the fall 2011 exhibition night, students displayed the class website, green chemistry experiments, and conducted a series of three humanities panel discussions. Each panel consisted of six students: a moderator, philosopher, green chemist, free-market business person, and an environmental activist. The moderator opened with the question: How can we solve the crisis of overconsumption? and facilitated the dialogue that followed. Video footage of the panels can be found below.
For the fall 2011 exhibition night, students displayed the class website, green chemistry experiments, and conducted a series of three humanities panel discussions. Each panel consisted of six students: a moderator, philosopher, green chemist, free-market business person, and an environmental activist. The moderator opened with the question: How can we solve the crisis of overconsumption? and facilitated the dialogue that followed. Video footage of the panels can be found below.
Panel Discussion Video