Women scientists in the circular economy: promoting educational promoting educational initiatives

Abstract

The circular economy consists of making the most of a raw material that enters the production cycle. It takes the form of the revalorization of industrial and domestic waste. Women are higly present in the development of technologiesthat reinforcethischange of model. Therefore, this project works with the hypothesisthat thecombination of women and the circular economy in the creation of audiovisual teaching materials for teachers will contribute positively to the awareness of a large group of citizens on both subjects. Thus, it proposes, on the one hand, to identify between 8 and 12 Spanish researchers and/or technicians who are working in the field of sustainability and/or the circular economy; videos will be produced that include interviews in which their life stories are collected, and brief descriptions or outlines of their research, emphasizing the chemical elements involved. These interviews will be hosted in a youtube channel that will be embedded in a web page created for the project. Based on these interviews, teaching material will be created for primary and secondary education teachers, which will be provided through the Regional Teacher Training Centre of Castilla La Mancha. The didactic guide will include a final activity that will involve the production of a video with which students and teachers will participate in a competition. The jury will be composed of some researchers, members of the project team. The level of awareness of the participating teachers and students will be measured before and after participating in the project (course-competition).
The first phase has been completed so far and can be viewed at https://bit.ly/CientíficasEC. The second one is running at https://bit.ly/CursoCientíficasEC,and held even under the current circumstances. We hope to be able to conclude the project in order to measure the extent of the action developed.