DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00400

Summary
This paper describes a summer workshop that was designed to have students explore the sustainability of their consumer choices through a systems thinking approach. Consideration was given to what chemicals were present in the product and their origin, potential health and environmental hazards from use of the product, and where the chemicals ended up after disposal.
Students investigated the sustainability of their consumer choices using laboratory activities and then were introduced to other “green” alternative products.
The workshop has three overarching objectives:
• Through systems thinking and laboratory activities, explore sustainable consumer choices.
• Provide more sustainable and green alternatives to typical consumer choices.
• Recruit and prepare higher-education STEM students.
The workshop contained lectures, laboratory activities and field trips. At the last day, an exit survey was given to have participants comment on the topics, the practiced laboratory techniques, and the suggested “green” consumer choices. Then, students created posters to be displayed in their schools that explain one of the environmental issues and promote sustainable consumer choices.
In detail: To introduce systems thinking, students reflected upon the usefulness and necessity of plastics in our society but then considered the manufacturing process and the environmental issues caused by their resistance to biodegradation. Then, in the laboratory, they performed experiments to investigate the concern, analyzed data, made conclusions about the environmental hazards of the product, and were introduced to a “green” alternative. Off-campus field trips allowed students to further explore more sustainable options.
Especially on the laboratory investigation of consumer choices the following activities have been developed :
• Heavy Metal Jewelry
• Phosphates in Detergents
• Food: Its Origin and Pesticide Residues
• Nail Polish Remover: Can It Be Harmful?
• Light Bulbs: Which One To Purchase?
• Polymers: What Makes a Plastic Recyclable and Biodegradable Lures?
Exit surveys indicated that these activities helped shape the way the students think about purchases and they have a better understanding of the greener alternatives.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
This paper deals with “system thinking” and “sustainable development”.
The purpose of the workshop was to have students consider a systems thinking approach and realize through laboratory activities that the purchase and use of a consumer product can affect many other systems. The laboratory activities were designed to (1) investigate an environmental or health issue related to a consumer product, (2) reinforce and practice benchtop chemistry laboratory skills, (3) analyze and interpret data and (4) promote discussion of alternative sustainable consumer choices.

Point of Strength
The point of strength of this article is the connection of customer choices with sustainability and system thinking. In addition, the development of system thinking based laboratory activities dealing with issues that concern young people, could provide fruitful ideas.