Students Craft Rag Rugs to Learn Sustainability History

College students are ditching their phones for looms, weaving recycled fabric into rag rugs just like their great-grandmothers did. What sounds like a vintage hobby is actually a powerful lesson about sustainability and our throwaway culture.

At the University of Alberta's Augustana Campus, art history professor Andrea Korda has students craft rag rugs from old sheets and fabric scraps as part of her modern art course. The project teaches them about the Industrial Revolution's dark side when machines replaced skilled workers, creating poor conditions and cheap, disposable goods.

Students study the Victorian-era Arts and Crafts movement, which pushed back against mass production by celebrating handmade quality. By weaving their own rugs, students physically experience what their ancestors valued: making things last instead of tossing them out.

The connection to today's problems is impossible to miss. Fast fashion fills landfills with 92 million tons of textile waste each year, and students wearing those cheap clothes are part of the cycle.

"They can think about how their own experiences connect to these bigger ideas, because when we talk about the history of the textile industry, we're all implicated in it," Korda explains. "We all wear clothes."

The timing feels right. Young people are embracing "grandma hobbies" like knitting, thrifting, and mending clothes instead of buying new. Korda thinks this shift reflects their environmental awareness and rejection of throwaway culture.

Why This Inspires

This project proves that solutions to modern problems often hide in old wisdom. Students aren't just learning dates and facts; they're using their hands to understand how consumption habits shape society across centuries.

The research team created Crafting Communities, a free website with lesson plans, DIY projects, and podcasts about Victorian crafting. Teachers anywhere can help students see themselves as part of a bigger story about making, wasting, and choosing differently.

"I want them to know that people have been talking about these issues for more than a hundred years," Korda says. Critical voices have always existed, and today's students are joining that conversation.

One rug at a time, students are discovering that slowing down and making things yourself isn't just nostalgic—it's revolutionary.