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    Lecture on Friday 17.02 

    Today is our final lecture! We'll be in class, but it you are unable to join in person, we will record the session and you can listen in using the same zoom link as before: https://aalto.zoom.us/j/68491763722. 

    Some important dates:

    For the project and presentation, here are some key dates! 

    • Please upload your video presentation (max. 15 mins) by 15th February, in Panopto (with a link to MC).
    • Discussions (approx. 15 mins each group) during week 8 (evaluation week) when suitable, via Zoom. Discussions will be with Mark, Anna or with both of us! 
    • Report due: Monday 6th March (to allow any feedback / comments from Mark/Anna or peers to be incorporated + putting the ‘finishing’ touches to the document).

    Below is a short video that was prepared for an earlier edition of the course, but the contents and comments are still valid! PLEASE NOTE that the deadlines given in the video are incorrect as they refer to the earlier edition! The dates above are the correct ones:

     

    Teaching in 2023

    Welcome to the 2023 edition of the Material for a World in Transition course! Happily, we will finally be able to meet face-to-face for this edition of the MWT course (the first two editions were fully online!) Despite this, one or two of the lectures will be organized online since the lecturer(s) are from abroad and, exceptionally, we may resort to the online environment if the need arises. Whenever possible, we will record the live lectures to preserve a record for later reference and as a resource if for any reason you are not able to attend in person.

    We very much hope that you will find the course engaging and inspiring!

    Mark Hughes & Anna Klemettinen


    Enrollment   

    The course is limited to a maximum of 60 participants. The course is mandatory for students of Creative Sustainability. If fewer than 60 places are taken by students on the Creative Sustainability program, the remaining places will be allocated to students from other programs. These students will be selected on the basis of their backgrounds, to ensure that we are able to create multidisciplinary teams for group working.

    About the course

    As the song by Madonna goes, we are “living in a material world” – literally! Our culture and economy is intimately linked to the transformation of materials into products for our use – for construction, for transportation and for the host of other artefacts deemed necessary by current society. With our use of raw materials, and the energy used in their transformation, we are now irrevocably changing our environment, to such an extent that a new geological epoch has been espoused – the Anthropocene.

    Historically, we learned to use the natural materials around us, or those derived from the animals hunted for food - stone, wood, vegetable fibers, leather, bone, horn, sinew etc. Later, we learned to produce metals from ores, and in the past century or so to synthesize polymers and resins from fossil oil. Through the scientific study of materials, we have become adept at creating new materials with radically new properties – properties never before seen, nor even dreamed of.

    Despite our undoubted ingenuity at developing new materials and producing new products from them, we still take little account of the impact that our materials’ use has on the environment and, in many cases, on our fellow humans. This paradigm needs to change. Recognizing this, new policy, at national and EU level has been developed, embodied in the concepts of the Circular Economy and the Bioeconomy, the aim of which is to change the current situation to a (more) sustainable use of materials. Even with these intentions, a gulf remains between the status quo and a sustainable materials economy.

    In this course, we will explore the nexus between materials and sustainability, adopting a systems thinking approach to materials cycles.  We will look at how the use of material and the choices we make in their selection, and the design of materials and products, affect sustainability. We will look at how we can improve resource efficiency and will explore the limits to this. We will look at material flows and the stakeholders involved in often highly complex value chains.

    Final schedule:

    Week #

    Date

    Time

    Topic

    Teacher

    2

    11.1

    10:15-12

    Introduction: Living in the material world

    Mark & Anna

    13.1

    10:15-12

    Materials and their attributes

    Mark & Anna

    3

    18.1

    10:15-12

    Properties of materials

    Mark & Anna

    20.1

    10:15-12

    Materials, flows and systems

    Mark & Anna

    4

    25.1

    10:15-12

    The ‘S’ Word (Impacts and strategies)

    Dr Callum Hill

    27.1

    10:15-12

    Mark & Anna

    5

    1.2

    10:15-12

    Applied systems science for sustainable systems transitions

    Prof. Deniz Koca

    3.2

    10:15-12

    Sustainable circular bioeconomy: A systems approach

    Prof. Deniz Koca

    6

    8.2

    10:15-12

    Thermodynamics

    Dr Callum Hill

    10.2

    10:15-12

    Resource efficiency & circular economy

    Mark

    7

    15.2

    10:15-12

    Metals, flows and systems

    Anna

    17.2

    10:15-12

    Materials and the bioeconomy

    Mark

    Important Deadlines

    Group work:
    • Video Presentation: 15.02
    • Project Report: 06.03
    Learning Diary:
    • Learning Diary 1: 24.01, Peer Feedback: 31.01
    • Learning Diary 2: 07.02, Peer Feedback: 14.02
    • Learning Diary 3: 21.02, Peer Feedback: 28.02