Abstract:

“Network Design” is a proposal based on a Project Based Learning (PBL) method developed from a multidisciplinary environment. This proposal allows registering and analyzing different solutions, and generates a students’ complete learning. Professors belonging to different universities, degrees and subjects have created a network with common objectives: to report the useless waste of tons of plastic mesh used for the packaging of fruits and vegetables; to alert about the ephemeral life of these residues that will remain for a long time on our planet, polluting it; to generate experimental, creative and useful proposals, using these same plastic nets until they can be integrated as creative and productive material; to send a call for attention to society, to promote proposals capable of generating awareness and changes in habits that reduce the manufacture of this material. The main goal is to give dignity to this recycled material.

The PBL goes through a very important phase of research and experimentation with recycled material. This phase will allow us to understand the characteristics and possibilities it offers to be able to turn it into a new material to be used from the Bachelor or Master disciplines, such as: Product Design, Design of Fashion Accessories, Design of Materials for Fashion, Design of Spaces, Landscape Painting, Artistic Drawing or Visual Communication.

Once first ideas are elaborated, a functional prototype that meets the design requirements (technical, conceptual, aesthetic and/or artistic) is reached by the students.

Likewise, it is expected to share the results in a collective exhibition, with the participation of all the working groups of the different universities, for multidisciplinary exchange. It is time to see the views of other disciplines, and allow us to understand the importance of paradigm shifts in the face of a problem and this arch for solutions.

This multidisciplinary experiences will allow future graduates to participate in interdisciplinary teams in their own studies or in the business world, obtaining the necessary skills for our current society, in which complex problems and a high degree of uncertainty require many readings, from different points of view.

On the other hand, this proposal allows the PBL to reach a real object, designed and produced, so that the student has the experience of a complete process. From the understanding of the problem posed and the general objectives pursued, it is capable of generating a challenge and learning along the way the acquisition of skills, knowledge and competencies, necessary for its execution. The student starts from their interest and curiosity as the seed of learning and creativity. The final product will fulfill both tangible and intangible purposes.

Students understand that the project they are working on goes beyond the limits of their classroom and they are aware of belonging to a larger group with a common ambition. This useful experience for the students is also very valuable for the teachers who have participated. Each achievement of a student or team of students has been an achievement for the entire "teacher network" involved in the project.

Keywords:

Network Design, Problem and Project Based Learning, Environmental awareness, Multidisciplinary project, Innovation.