Abstract
The 2008 Junior High School Course of Study explores the inclusion of education for sustainable development (ESD) to build a sustainable society, with environmental issues being one of the themes in ESD. This study aims to discuss the content of a clothing learning unit of a junior high school home economics class in the 2008 Course of Study from the perspective of ESD, and attempts to create a new structure. Based on this, we restructured the unit on laundry, developed a lesson plan, and put it into practice. This study introduced the three viewpoints--limited nature, circulation of water resources and protection of the aquatic environment--to conventional instruction on laundry practice, to help the students grasp the concept of environmental sustainability the teaching objectives were to get students to think about and take ESD into account in their own laundering practices. After the class, in comparison with a class implemented under the 1998 Course of Study, the students are expected (1) to have acquired the knowledge of sustainability (environmental conservation) and (2) to show their understanding of the acquired knowledge through their selections of laundry detergents. In the future, I will develop the necessary content and improved lesson plans in order to get students to systematically explore a sustainable lifestyle with regard to clothing.
