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Case study: Empowering students with design thinking

Published on: 07/07/2023 · Last updated on: 03/09/2024

The Big Picture Challenge

Globally too much food is wasted. Can you see opportunities for innovation?

The Big Picture Challenge was an extra-curricular enterprise activity run over five weeks in the first semester of the 18/19 academic year. Thirty-eight students from all disciplines and all levels of study (MBA to first year) worked in teams through a design-thinking process to generate and test ideas to tackle food waste.

This activity was a joint initiative between Catalina Amihaiesi, Student Enterprise Co-ordinator at the Students’ Union and Dr Henrietta Sherwin, Research Associate at the School of Management, with support and funding from the Centre for Learning and Teaching and the Public Engagement Unit. The Big Picture Challenge aimed to explore new ways of learning through curriculum transformation.

What the participants said

“It was a privilege to witness the excellent ideas that all of the student groups presented to reduce food waste and improve sustainability. Even more impressive was that these students came from all over the world, and were put together in random groups. The fact that not only did they all gel and work together, but that the output was so good shows the value of this kind of cross disciplinary, cross nationality team creation in the best possible way. It was also clear that all of the students involved were highly committed to sustainability, the environment, and tackling climate change. It was good that they had this opportunity to show those beliefs in such a positive way.”

Dave Broadway, Bath alumnus, Chairman of CFH Docmail (Judge)

“I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the students’ ideas for tackling food waste. They were all creative, well thought out and deserving of merit. At this critical point in history where we must tackle sustainability challenges head on if we are to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change and our throwaway society, I felt inspired and encouraged by the commitment and energy that these students put into their projects. I hope that getting involved in these sustainability challenges will help students to appreciate the importance of the role they can play in changing the world for the better, at University.”

Libby Sandbrook, Head of Circular Economy at Business in the Community (Judge)

You can download the report from the ‘article attachments’ section below:


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