The Secret Life of Things is a set of short animated videos exploring the hidden environmental impacts of everyday things. Each video comes with a free pack of learning resources to inspire and engage budding designers and product developers with life cycle thinking and eco-design. Read more
The Secret Life of Things (SLOT) project aims to inspire and engage people with the hidden environmental impacts of everyday things, using fun short animated films and learning resources.
The learning resources demonstrate eco-design via engaging case studies and fact sheets, which lecturers and students can download as PDF documents. They cover eco-design strategies such as design for disassembly, product stewardship, e-waste and other vital topics. They also explore how these strategies are applied to everyday items such as mobile phones and sports shoes. There are fun learning tasks to encourage students to think, do research and apply their new knowledge in practical and creative ways.
The SLOT project was developed by eco-design expert Leyla Acaroglu from Eco Innovators.For more information please contact us here.
All resources are free to use and have been developed for higher education settings, but can also be used in high schools as well.
There are 8 fact sheets, 2 main class activities and 4 case studies that have been released with the first animation. To find out more about the resources click here
Reviews of The Secret Life of Things
"This hilarious video shows you what you're really putting to your ear day in and day out. But have you ever thought of it from the cell phone's perspective? Well now you will and in the process, learn what's really in your cell phone. You'll see that its parts are sourced all over, I mean all over the world. And they could be designed in a much better way so that they could be updated, instead of thrown out, and dissembled instead of just sent to the landfill".
- Sara Novak Planet Green.com
"Just as the guys behind the Toy Story franchise have made us feel collectively guilty about all the playthings weve abandoned over the years, the animation Life Pscycle-ology has us thinking about all the out-dated cell phones weve tossed away".
- Brodie Lancaster, Portable.TV
"Love this - it's brilliant, pedagogy brought to marvelous life - thank you!"
- Posted by Frank Romagosa
"Leyla's model, via the animation, proposes design with a conscious. She encourages students to make products in consideration of the environmental and social impact, to make products that are either designed to last longer, or at least that can be taken apart and re-used elsewhere."
- Tafline Laylin, The Green Prophet Read More
"...introducing a catchy video called "the secret life of a little mobile phone. "You'll see that its parts are sourced all over, I mean all over the world. And they could be designed in a much better way so that they could be updated, instead of thrown out, and dissembled instead of just sent to the landfill."
- Florian Kaefer, Sustainability Fourm Read More
"The Secret Life of Things transcends just the problems with the manufacturing systems. It provides actual solutions to them by different means than consumer pressure...."It's entertaining, easy to understand and sheds light on the problem of manufacturing electronics without giving thought to their eventual disposal. Definitely worth a watch!
- Carol Thompson, The Daily Green read more
