From food waste data to transformative sensemaking: the Motta Framework for sustainability learning
This study introduces the Motta Framework for Transformative Sensemaking, a non-linear model derived from a Brazilian school-based intervention, which demonstrates how contextual food waste data, mediated by a hybrid digital-teaching tool, facilitates a recursive process of problem materialization and collective sensemaking that reframes socio-environmental issues without relying on technology's autonomous transformative power.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine you are walking through a school cafeteria. You see a trash can overflowing with half-eaten apples and untouched sandwiches. For years, most people just saw this as "lunch leftovers" and kept walking. But what if we could turn that trash can into a mystery box? This paper lives in the world of sustainability learning, which is basically the study of how we teach people to care for the planet not just by memorizing facts, but by connecting those facts to their own feelings and daily lives. It also leans on sensemaking, a fancy way of saying "figuring out what something means when it's confusing," and student agency, which is the superpower of feeling like you can actually do something to change things, rather than just watching. The big question here is simple but tricky: Does just showing people numbers about how much food is wasted actually make them care enough to change? Or do we need something more to turn a boring statistic into a reason to act?
The authors of this study, Sany da Silva Motta and Ricardo César da Silva Guabiroba, decided to find out by turning a Brazilian high school cafeteria into a real-life detective lab. They didn't just tell students, "Hey, waste is bad." Instead, they built a hybrid tool called Merenda Inteligente (Smart Lunch). Think of this tool as a magical magnifying glass that combines a digital app with a series of classroom activities. The students used it to weigh their food waste for 16 days, turning invisible trash into a pile of hard data. In total, they recorded 68.803 kg of wasted food.
Here is where the magic happens. The researchers found that the numbers alone didn't do the trick. Seeing "68.803 kg" on a screen was like seeing a score on a video game; it was interesting, but it didn't necessarily make you want to play better. The real transformation happened when the data collided with the students' actual feelings and experiences. The authors call this "phenomenological friction." Imagine rubbing two sticks together to make a fire; the friction is that moment when the cold, hard data rubs up against a student's memory of a hungry classmate or their own guilt about throwing away a tasty meal. This friction sparked a spark of discomfort or curiosity.
Once that spark was lit, the students started talking to each other. This is the second part of the story: collective sensemaking. Instead of blaming themselves for being "bad eaters," the students started asking better questions. They realized the waste wasn't just about them; it was about the school serving huge portions, not giving them enough time to eat, or the menu being boring. They moved from thinking "I am wasteful" to "Our system is wasteful." This shift allowed them to feel a sense of shared agency. They started proposing ideas like composting, starting a school garden, or asking for smaller portions.
However, the paper is very careful not to promise a fairy-tale ending. The authors explicitly state that this study does not prove that the students stopped wasting food forever, nor does it claim the school's system was completely fixed. In fact, they found that the process was messy and sometimes got stuck. Some students felt guilty but didn't know what to do; others had great ideas but no way to make them happen because the school administration didn't listen. The study suggests that while the students became more aware and felt ready to act, the actual "value creation" (the real-world change) was only a possibility at this stage, not a finished product.
To sum it up, the authors developed something they call the Motta Framework for Transformative Sensemaking. Think of this framework as a map for a journey that isn't a straight line. It has four stops:
- Materialisation: Turning the messy trash into clear data (the weighing).
- Phenomenological Friction: That moment of feeling uncomfortable or surprised when the data hits your heart.
- Collective Sensemaking: The group chat where everyone figures out why the waste is happening together.
- Shared Agency: The group deciding to try to fix it, even if they don't have total control yet.
The most important takeaway is that technology (like the app) and data (the weights) are just the tools, not the heroes. They are the spark, but the fire only starts when students are given the space to feel, talk, and question. The paper suggests that for sustainability learning to work, we can't just dump numbers on people and hope they change. We have to help them rub those numbers against their own lives until the friction creates a new understanding. And while this study showed that students could reach this new understanding, it also warned that without a school willing to listen and act, that understanding might just stay as a good idea rather than a changed reality.
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