Case Helsinki | “Recycling Master” Online Course for Target Groups with Special Needs

Author: Kaisa Sibelius, Forum Virium Helsinki

Most recycling guides are prepared for average citizens who have an easy access and do not have any difficulties to read or follow the text or instructions. The TREASoURcE project has created a concept of an online recycling course called “Recycling Master” for the users who might need some extra support for learning.

The concept takes into account many special features related to for instance visualisation, gaming and other features to make the recycling material more accessible for users who might struggle with the ordinary recycling information. The pilot course was developed together with the customers and the personnel of Rehabilitative Work Activities and Disability Service Unit of the City of Helsinki.

Enhancing the Consumers’ Recycling Knowledge

Recycling needs the effort of stakeholders in all levels of society, and the citizens have a big role when it comes to the municipal waste. For example, in Finland each inhabitant produces almost 600 kg of waste per year and only 42% (2020) of it was recycled. There is also plenty of information available but it doesn’t always suit everyone.

One task of the TREASoURcE project has been to extend the consumer’s general knowledge about recycling. To ensure a meaningful result of the work, the concept creation work started with the identification of unmet needs and a committed partner. In the end we decided to collaborate with the Rehabilitative Work Activities and Disability Service Unit of the City of Helsinki. The goal was to improve essential civil skills of recycling for their clients. The result of the ideation call was “Recycling know-how for customers of Social Rehabilitation Services”. 

As a result, we developed a course consisting of 16 lessons, each lasting 45 minutes explaining everyday life recycling manners in Helsinki. The duration of the course was designed to align with the requirements for unemployment benefits in Finland. The course included recycling guidance of various waste streams, integrating good recycling habits into everyday life, and envisioning a sustainable future.

Target Groups

Although there are already numerous materials available, they are generally broad and targeted at the average citizen. We identified a significant gap, specifically a lack of plain text learning materials tailored to diverse user needs. 

Rehabilitative work activities are intended for individuals who, due to limitations in their work and functional capacity, cannot participate in public employment services or work, with the aim of improving the client’s life management and functional capacity. 

In the context of disability services work activities, the participants include adults with developmental disabilities and those on the neurodivergent spectrum, whose functional capacity and support needs vary significantly. 

Call for Content Creators

After definition of the target we released a call for innovators and subcontracts to make suggestions of the production. We selected a subcontractor to create the content and facilitate the process who brought expertise in recycling, pedagogy, and online platforms, and their approach was highly user driven. The city’s units were already using the Moodle platform, and the content was developed there using H5P tools.

In addition to desk-based work, we involved the personnel and the clients for the content production. We organized three two hour co-creation workshops, where the clients and staff of the service units were invited in to participate. During the workshops, participants provided feedback on the planned content, tasks, and functionalities. The main objective of these sessions was to optimize the content and the amount and complexity of it for each lesson. While the e-learning platform was familiar to most users, the varying abilities and information processing speeds among participants posed challenges, requiring us to carefully balance the content’s complexity.

We see that the early commitment of the target groups will ensure a longer life cycle and further development of the course in the future.

Pedagogic Approach

The implementation is based on two pedagogic theories, Narrative pedagogy and Bloom’s theory: 

• Narrative pedagogy utilises strong and engaging narrative in the design and implementation of teaching and learning with stories. This approach includes elements of play, imagination, gamification, and humor. Stories help learners assign meaning to what they’re learning and promote student engagement with the subject matter by using imagination and making learning a meaningful experience. 
• Bloom’s taxonomy is a set of three hierarchical models used for classification of educational learning objectives from remembering to analysing and creating new. Desired requirements were visuality, gamification, accessibility, plain language and suitability for self-study supporting the target groups special needs. 

Learning Content

After the first discussions about the project implementation it was clear that when you are talking about the recycling of everyday life, it’s more than just plastic, biowaste, or batteries, which were the target areas of TREASoURcE.

The conclusion was that metal, textiles, paper and cardboard, electronic waste, and medicines were included in the course. In addition, the course includes sessions like “Me as a recycler” and “Sustainable future”. Overall, the course content consists of 36 learning sessions of 16 hours in total with 12 test sessions and 12 Moodle activity types, 80 pages of text, 200 videos, 160 custom pictures.

AI was utilised for the content creation in addition by using existing, publicly available materials produced by recycling organizations in Finland. These organisations are also  legally obligated to provide recycling guidance. 

Localisation

The course content is highly adaptable, allowing the involved City of Helsinki’s units to modify materials further according to their specific needs in the future. The materials are also accessible to any other users and organisations, for free.

Furthermore, the TREASoURcE project will localise the course concept for Estonia and Norway in the beginning of 2025, as outlined in the project plan.