Module 2. Week 2

This week, our ISA Liwan cohort worked together to create a biomass material that we could use for making. Our local instructor has been working on making a wooden table with resin, and has had a lot of extra sawdust. For our inspiration, we found this video about turning that sawdust into a pot for a plant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YURochGHr8&t=177s

From the video, we gathered that this is what we will need.

Ingredients: Sawdust of a questionable amount. 1 cup flour 3+ cups water 3 tablespoons of vinegar Wooden glue (50ml or so) Molds to put the mixture in (the blue one under the cup).

Instructions: Mix flour and water together on high heat until thick, then remove and add sawdust and vinegar while still hot. Mix with hands when cooled, add wooden glue. Cling film to cover the bowls/molds. Put the dryish, sand like mixture into the molds. Spoon to flatten sawdust mix.

Luckily, we had a mold already printed that would fit for a tiny pot. We also had some small tea cups that we could use for our molds. We also had a large wooden bowl that could be used for a pot shape as well. After gathering everything, we started by mixing the flour and water together, and stirring until it was thick.

Then we put it in a plastic box and mixed it together with the sawdust. It seemed no matter how much sawdust we added, it was still too wet. We started by adding 2 cups of sawdust but in the end probably had around 7 cups of sawdust to reach the desired hardness.

We added the glue, quickly mixed it, and put it into the molds. I tried to put a picture of us putting in the glue, but it hasn’t worked for 10 times in a row now.

After we mixed in the glue, we found it still felt too wet. We added a lot more sawdust one spoon at a time until it reached a desired “sandy” feel. We then put our plastic wrap over the mold, cup, and bowl, and pushed a thick layer of the sawdust biomaterial onto that plastic wrap. I also tried to put in a photo here but it does not upload.

We allowed it to dry for a few days in the sun, and had to flip it after a few days as the bottom still felt wet, but the bowl is hard.

Reflection Questions

Q: Have you considered sustainable practices in your teaching in the pasts? How? What aspects do you think should be improved in your own teaching environment?

A: I have always tried to be an environmentalist in every small way possible. I encourage all students to use GOOS (good one one side) paper for all drawings. I turn off the lights and AC whenever possible. For science, when learning the parts of plants, I always encourage students to take care of plants and teach them how to plant their own. I have recently been using digital ways of creating presentations/showing their learning instead of using poster boards or paper. With that being said, there is still plenty that can be done. As I hope to be using DF for primary students, there is always going to be extra wood boards that will become waste. It would be nice to be able to use those boards to make something useful. That is why I was so interested in turning sawdust into something useful. However, we have a garden at our school with infinate amount of dirt, so I’m not sure if pots are something we really need. What we could use is a good compost system. Our school has signs up talking about how much food waste we have, and it’s usually in the hundreds of kilograms each day. Sawdust can be used as the “brown” aka natural layer in the compost piles (apparently a good compost pile rotates layers between food waste and yard waste such as wood, leaves, dirt, etc.) Last year we bought a tool to help with compost, but never were able to put it into use. This is just one addition I can think of to become more sustainable.

Q: How Digital Fabrication might support sustainable practices? When using Digital Fabrication what actions you can take to support sustainable practices.

A: So far what I have noticed in my DF journey is that we have parts of wood that are unused from cutting piece out in the middle of it. A good start is to use laser cutting software that nests the projects as close together as possible. Then, using scrap wood to make something useful, like compost as listed above. The second part I have noticed is that sometimes laser printing jobs don’t go as planned, resulting in scrap plastic. According to this website, filament can be put into a plastic shredder then use a filament extruder, then melted into usable filiment. In China, filament and most parts are super easy and cheap to buy for now, but when time goes on an we have enough extra waste, these might be good ideas to be invested in.

Q: Do you think your school is ready to a change in mindset? Why? How can you get support from other stakeholders? How would you structure a training for teachers?

A: I do not think our school is ready to change any mindset regarding sustainability. The reason why is simple, our school is in only our third year of operation and there is way too much already on people’s minds. There are too many managers that are pushing too many different ideas, curriculums, programs, standards, etc. We cannot accept more ideas yet until we have passed the phase of everyone being confused about what we really are. Once we are a bit more developed, we can start thinking in more constant, reasonable sustainable ways. Small things can be done now, for example creating a GOOS basket next to each printer for teachers/students to use as scrap paper. The school has recently put stickers next to each AC system reminding people to turn it off after class, and keep the temperatures as moderate as possible. As stated before, we can start using our school’s food waste to grow new plants/improve the soil in our garden. As for structuring a training for teachers, it would have to come from higher up. I would have to convince a leader that this is a change we need immedately, and have them be the ones delivering the training, not only to the teachers but to the primary, middle, and high school leadership team as well, to ensure everyone is on board and understandable. While I care about the environment, it’s not an issue on the top of everyone’s mind at our school right now, but hopefully it soon will be!