Learning objective
- To explore sustainable fashion by working in a team to plan a clothes swap or upcycling project.
Success criteria
- I can explain what fast fashion is and why it harms the environment.
- I can describe how reusing and recycling clothes and shoes helps reduce waste.
- I can plan a sustainable fashion project.
National curriculum
Geography
Pupils should be taught to:
- Describe and understand key aspects of human geography, including: types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water.
Cross-curricular links
Science
Pupils should explore:
- Examples of human impact (both positive and negative) on environments.
Before the lesson
- Presentation: Agree or disagree?
- Presentation: Sustainability and fashion.
- Presentation: Sustainable fashion.
- Presentation: What is a clothes swap? (see Option 1 in the Main event).
- Presentation: T-shirt transformation stages.
- Whiteboards and pens (one between two).
- Three sheets of A4 scrap paper with ‘Negative’, ‘Positive’ and ‘It’s complicated’ written on the back.
- Sticky tack.
- Option 1 – Reduce
- sugar paper or A3 paper (one sheet per group);
- lined paper (one sheet per group).
- Option 2 – Reuse
- vest tops or t-shirts (one each);
- fabric scissors (one pair between two).
The Knowledge organiser provides a visual summary of the key facts and vocabulary for the unit. The children can use it throughout the lesson to check keyword meanings or spellings and to help them remember important information when completing an activity. Find further ideas for using the Knowledge organiser to support adaptive teaching here.
Subject knowledge
What is fast fashion?
Fast fashion refers to the rapid production of inexpensive clothing, often inspired by the latest trends. These items are mass-produced quickly and sold at low prices, encouraging frequent purchases.
Sustainability issues in fast fashion
Fast fashion has significant environmental and social consequences:
- Resource use: the production of textiles, particularly cotton and synthetic fabrics, requires vast amounts of water, energy and chemicals. For example, it takes around 2,700 litres of water to make one cotton T-shirt, enough for one person to drink for over two years. Synthetic fabrics like polyester come from fossil fuels and shed microplastics when washed.
- Waste and pollution: many fast-fashion items are designed to be worn only a few times before being discarded. 85% of all textiles end up in landfills each year. Additionally, textile dyeing is one of the world’s largest sources of water pollution, affecting rivers and oceans.
- Labour exploitation: many fast-fashion brands rely on cheap labour in countries such as Bangladesh, India, and China. Some workers, including children, are paid extremely low wages and work in unsafe conditions. The 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, where a garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing over 1,100 workers, highlighted these issues. Exploitation is not limited to overseas; figures obtained by the BBC have revealed more than 1,200 garment workers in Leicester were illegally underpaid between 2019 and 2024.
Why is it complicated?
While the negative impacts of fast fashion are clear, the solutions are complex:
- Affordability versus ethics: sustainable fashion is often more expensive, making it inaccessible to many people.
- Economic dependency: millions of people, particularly in low-income countries, rely on the garment industry for jobs. Simply boycotting fast fashion could harm these workers.
- Consumer habits: many people buy fast fashion because of social pressures and advertising, making it difficult to shift behaviours.
- Recycling challenges: while donating clothes sounds like a good solution, only a small percentage of second-hand clothes are reused. Many are shipped overseas, where they can disrupt local economies and still end up as waste.
Encouraging sustainable choices
Although the issues are complex, individuals can make a difference:
- Buying less and choosing well: encouraging children to think about whether they truly need new clothes.
- Second-hand and upcycling: charity shops, swapping clothes and repurposing old garments can extend clothing life.
- Supporting ethical brands: some brands prioritise fair wages and environmentally friendly materials.
- Rethinking disposal: instead of throwing clothes away, they can be repaired, reused or recycled.
Lesson organisation
There are two activities to choose from in the Main event. One is an upcycling project to turn unwanted t-shirts into bags. The second is to plan a clothes swap at school or in the local community. Alternatively, both projects could be undertaken with the bags being sold at the clothes swap.
The information within this section provides basic generic guidance only and is not tailored to the circumstances of your school or class. You must ensure you refer to and follow your own school’s health & safety policy and complete any necessary risk assessments. It is the teacher’s responsibility to check all resources and lesson content to ensure it is suitable for their class setting.
Health and safety
When using sharp fabric scissors in the classroom, take the following precautions:
- Always supervise use.
- Demonstrate safe handling.
- Use age-appropriate scissors.
- Set clear rules for use.
- Ensure scissors are sharp enough to cut easily.
- Store securely when not in use.
Lesson plan
1: Recap and recall
Display the Presentation: Agree or disagree? Ask the children to discuss the statement on the slide with a partner.
Presentation: Agree or disagree?
Take feedback, ensuring the children justify their answers.
2: Attention grabber
Display the Presentation: Sustainability and fashion and read through each slide.
Presentation: Sustainability and fashion
Questions
- What are the three Rs? (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.)
- Why are the three Rs ordered Reduce, Reuse, Recycle? (The children may suggest: reduce comes first because using less creates less waste and pollution; reuse comes second because using things again saves resources and reduces the need for new products; recycle comes last because it still uses energy and resources, so it should be the final option after reducing and reusing.)
Arrange the children into pairs and hand out the whiteboards and pens. Ask the children to draw a line down the centre of their whiteboard and title the columns Sustainable and Unsustainable.
Display slide 1 of the Presentation: Sustainable fashion.
Presentation: Sustainable fashion
Ask the children to sort the images into two groups: sustainable fashion and unsustainable fashion.
Take feedback, dragging and dropping the images onto the sliding scale. Ensure the children justify their choices. For the sustainable choices, ask them to decide which of the three Rs (Reduce, Reuse or Recycle) makes it sustainable.
3: Main event
Play the Pupil video: Fast fashion, pausing at 1:17.
Pupil video: Fast fashion
- What is fast fashion? (The children may suggest: clothes made quickly and cheaply; clothes designed to follow trends; clothes that don’t last long and are often thrown away.)
- How was clothing different in the past compared to today? (The children may suggest: clothes were made from natural fabrics like wool, cotton and linen; people repaired clothes instead of throwing them away; clothes were more expensive but lasted longer; fewer new clothes were made.)
- Why do you think shops release new clothing collections every few weeks? (The children may suggest: to keep up with new trends; to encourage people to buy more; to make more money from selling clothes.)
- How does fast fashion harm the environment? (The children may suggest: it uses lots of water; it releases toxic chemicals; it causes pollution; it creates waste when clothes are thrown away.)
- What are microplastics, and how do they get into our water? (The children may suggest: tiny plastic fibres that come off synthetic fabrics; they are released when we wash clothes and end up in rivers and oceans.)
Play the remainder of the video.
Questions
- Why is fast fashion difficult to stop? (The children may suggest: sustainable fashion is more expensive; fast fashion is easy to buy; trends change quickly; social media makes people want new clothes; companies do not always tell the truth about how clothes are made.)
- What are some ways people can shop more sustainably? (The children may suggest: buy fewer clothes; shop in charity shops; buy second-hand online; repair clothes instead of throwing them away.)
- Why do small changes in how we shop make a big difference? (The children may suggest: less waste goes to landfill; fewer clothes need to be made; it helps improve the environment.)
Option 1 – Reduce
Explain that the children will be organising a school clothes swap. To explain what this is, display the Presentation: What is a clothes swap?
Presentation: What is a clothes swap?
Explain that the children will work in groups to take responsibility for one aspect of the organisation. Explain briefly the group names and what they will be responsible for:
- Promotion team: plan how to spread the word and encourage people to take part in the clothes swap.
- Collection team: plan how clothes will be collected and organised before the event.
- Display team: plan how the clothes will be displayed so the swap is easy to navigate.
- Swap helpers: plan how to help people at the event and keep the swap running smoothly.
- Quality control and recycling team: plan how to check clothes before the swap and decide what to do with any leftovers.
- Record-keeping team: plan how to record information about the event and collect feedback afterwards.
Arrange the children into six groups. Give each group a challenge from the Activity: Challenge cards and a piece of sugar paper or A3 paper.
Explain that the children need to work through their challenge cards and tick the boxes when they have completed each element of the challenge. Give the groups fifteen minutes to discuss their task, and record their ideas on their sheets.
Ask each group in turn to feedback to the rest of the class, giving the rest of the class the opportunity to challenge or build on the group’s ideas. Once all of the groups have shared their ideas, hand out the lined paper and ask each group to create a to-do list.
Option 2 – Reuse
Explain that the children are going to be focusing on the reuse aspect of the waste reduction hierarchy and transforming a t-shirt or vest top into a tote bag.
Play the Pupil video: T-shirt transformation.
Pupil video: T-shirt transformation
Display the Presentation: T-shirt transformation stages and ask the children to order the stages they will need to complete to turn their T-shirt into a bag.
Presentation: T-shirt transformation stages
Arrange the children into pairs and hand out the T-shirts and scissors (one per pair). Explain that the children will take turns with the scissors to complete each stage of the T-shirt transformation.
Re-start the video and allow it to play on a loop until all of the children have completed their bags.
4: Wrapping up
Use sticky tack to fix the scrap paper to the wall of the classroom, with ‘Positive’ at one end, ‘Negative’ at the other and ‘It’s complicated’ in the middle.
Arrange the children into pairs and give each pair a statement from the Activity: Fashion statements. Ask the children to discuss their statements with their partners and decide where on the continuum they think their statements should be placed.
Invite the pairs to stand along the continuum. Once all the class is in position, ask each pair to read their statement. Give the other children the opportunity to challenge where they are standing and allow the pairs to move if they are swayed by their peers’ arguments.
Extended-mode explainer videos
How to extend your display to view the lesson page and preseantion mode simultaneously. Choose your operating system below to watch the video
If you need further support with extending your display,
please contact [email protected].
Extended-mode explainer video: For Mac
Extended-mode explainer video: For Windows
Adaptive teaching
Pupils needing support
Could pre-watch or re-watch the pupil video; could refer to the vocabulary section of the Knowledge organiser: Sustainability throughout the lesson.
Pupils working at greater depth:
Could evaluate the impact of fast fashion on the environment; should explain why fast fashion is a complicated issue.
Assessing progress and understanding
Pupils with secure understanding indicated by: explaining what fast fashion is and why it harms the environment; describing how reusing and recycling clothes and shoes helps reduce waste.
Pupils working at greater depth indicated by: evaluating the impact of fast fashion on the environment and suggesting solutions to reduce its negative effects; justifying why some sustainable fashion choices are more effective than others in reducing waste and pollution.
Vocabulary definitions
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carbon footprint
Pollution created from things people do.
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charity shop
A shop that sells second-hand things to raise money.
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fast fashion
When clothes are made quickly and cheaply.
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landfill
A big place where rubbish is buried under the ground.
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microplastics
Tiny pieces of plastic that can get into the ocean and harm sea animals.
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natural fibres
Fibres that come from plants or animals.
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pollution
The damage caused to air or water by harmful substances.
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recycle
Turning old things into something new instead of throwing them away.
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reduce
To use less.
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reuse
To use something more than once.
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second-hand
Something that has been owned and used by someone else before.
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sustainability
A way to complete a process without it harming the environment.
In this unit
Assessment - Geography Y5: Why do oceans matter?
Lesson 1: How do we use our oceans?
Lesson 2: What is the Great Barrier Reef?
Lesson 3: Why are our oceans suffering?
Lesson 4: What can we do to help our oceans?
Lesson 5: How littered is our marine environment?: Data collection
Lesson 6: How littered is our marine environment?: Findings
Optional sustainability lesson: What is fast fashion and why is it a problem?
Maintained by: Kapow Primary team
Last update: 25th March, 2025
