In a workshop at Afyon Vocational School, students turn marble waste into design objects and sculptures. The fragments, offcuts, and remnant blocks come from the quarries and processing plants around Afyonkarahisar, where marble production supports local livelihoods but also leaves substantial quantities of unused stone. Working with these materials gives students a chance to develop their technical and design skills while exploring what can be made from something that would otherwise be discarded. Elsewhere at the school, students in a required English course read and write about drought, water use, and industrial waste. They practice the language they will need in their careers through subjects connected to the industries and communities around them. Both activities grew out of existing teaching, showing how a vocational school can bring local environmental concerns into its courses without first establishing a separate program. Together, they offer a starting point for the kind of collaboration Â鶹ÊÓƵ supports, connecting student learning with local priorities and giving students practical reasons to think about how their future work will affect the place where they live.

Where this is happening

Afyonkarahisar lies on Türkiye’s inland plateau, southwest of Ankara. Cold winters and hot, dry summers shape water availability for agriculture, industry, and households. The province’s marble quarries and processing plants, particularly around Ä°scehisar, supply international construction markets. Irrigated agriculture draws on the same limited surface water and groundwater resources. The pressure is visible at Eber Lake, near Bolvadin. National press reports have described losses of as much as 90 per cent of its volume, affecting fishing communities and migratory birds. Rain and snow during the winter of 2025–2026 reportedly raised lake levels, but surface-water recovery does not necessarily mean aquifers have replenished. Continued pumping can maintain pressure on groundwater after a wet winter.

Marble processing adds to these challenges. Sawing and polishing consume water and produce fine particles, offcuts, and carbonate-rich sludge. Research has explored using marble waste in cement, ceramics, and aggregate, but local feasibility depends on material properties, processing and transport costs, and demand. Students can investigate these questions through their training.

Afyon Vocational School’s two-year associate degrees connect it to a broader economy, encompassing technical fields, culinary arts, and hotel management. Graduates enter workplaces where everyday decisions influence water consumption, material use, and waste. Teaching about sustainability therefore has practical relevance across both industrial and service occupations.

Learning through Materials

Working with waste stone connects classroom learning to real production and disposal challenges. Teaching in Marble Technology and Construction Technology draws on faculty expertise in construction materials and industrial byproducts. The university’s Natural Stone Analysis Laboratory supports teaching and provides material testing for industry, offering resources for investigating the properties of discarded stone and the requirements of potential applications.

Students must consider what is technically possible alongside what a business could reasonably adopt. Why is this material discarded? Could a change in processing reduce waste? Would another use justify the cost of collecting and preparing it? Such questions bring circular economy principles into the practical work of handling materials and supervising production. They also create opportunities for future projects shaped with local businesses and public agencies.

The teaching starts with materials students can recognise from the economy around them. Following stone from processing waste to a proposed product encourages them to examine its properties and the steps needed before reuse becomes practical. Workshop activity can reveal questions for laboratory testing, while research on construction materials can inform what students try next. This gives classroom investigation a connection to both professional knowledge and the conditions in which a material would actually be used.

Connecting English Learning with Sustainability

Dr. Pelin Sertyesilisik brings climate and environmental topics into English teaching for students preparing for technical careers. Readings and activities on drought, water use, waste recovery, and the circular economy develop language proficiency through issues students may encounter at work. Including these topics in required coursework also reaches students who might not attend a separate environmental seminar.

English helps students read equipment manuals, understand technical specifications, and work with international information. Describing a marble slurry recovery process or reading recycled-aggregate specifications connects language practice to production and waste management. Students learn vocabulary relevant to their training while considering whether approaches developed elsewhere could work in their own workplaces.

Pelin also contributes to university sustainability work through service as a deputy sustainability coordinator, participation in the Environmental Management Commission, and work on UI GreenMetric submissions. With Prof. Dr. Emine Hesna Kandır, she contributed a 2026 chapter to Green Metric in Higher Education, examining how construction on permeable land affects water and carbon and connecting these concerns with campus development.

Her outreach extends beyond campus. In March 2025, she spoke at a girls’ high school about the textile industry’s water footprint through the provincial education directorate’s zero-waste programming. In November, she presented on digital and electronic waste to provincial environmental officials and municipal staff, exploring why people retain unused devices and the risks of improper disposal. These activities strengthen relationships that could support further collaboration.

Working with Partners

Several public institutions address Afyonkarahisar’s environmental challenges. The municipality’s Climate Change and Zero Waste Directorate handles waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and environmental inspections. The provincial Directorate of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change oversees environmental regulation, including requirements affecting stone processing and waste management. The Provincial Directorate of National Education integrates environmental education into school curricula.

Their responsibilities create opportunities for coursework to address specific practical questions. Measuring marble slurry, testing recovered materials against technical specifications, or investigating water use requires time, equipment, and expertise. Public authorities bring knowledge of local conditions and relationships with businesses and communities. The university can contribute laboratory facilities, faculty expertise, and student work organised through relevant courses. Together, these resources could help partners investigate problems while giving students experience in environmental management.

Events in 2025 show how these relationships have developed. Provincial environmental officials and municipal zero-waste staff attended the university’s electronic waste seminar during the European Week for Waste Reduction. The university also contributed speakers to International Zero Waste Day activities organised by the provincial education directorate. These exchanges connect educators with the people responsible for local environmental programmes.

The regional agenda offers further possibilities. In March 2026, the Zero Waste Foundation launched an Eber Lake restoration programme addressing crop water requirements, agricultural planning, and tourism to support local incomes. These objectives cross disciplinary and institutional boundaries. An Â鶹ÊÓƵ partnership could help translate shared interests into projects matched to partner needs and the resources available within courses.

Building Connections with Â鶹ÊÓƵ Asia

An Â鶹ÊÓƵ-Asia visit in December 2025 connected Afyon Kocatepe University’s sustainability work with university–community partnerships elsewhere in the region. Dr. Nuttavikhom Phanthuwongpakdee of the Puey Ungphakorn School of Development Studies at Thammasat University, Thailand, joined the university’s Sustainability Commission meeting as Â鶹ÊÓƵ-Asia Coordinator, sharing examples of how universities and local governments identify priorities together and organise teaching and research around them. The following day, he visited Afyon Vocational School’s workshops and met with Prof. Tayfun UygunoÄŸlu, the school’s director at the time, to discuss possible projects and a roadmap for cooperation. These discussions explored how existing courses, faculty expertise, and workshop and laboratory facilities could support student investigations into local environmental challenges. For the vocational school, the exchange offered a practical way to turn existing teaching into projects shaped with local partners, giving students experience with questions public agencies and nearby industries need to address.

Sustaining the Work through Teaching

Future student projects could help municipal and provincial partners investigate questions through waste inventories, materials testing, feasibility assessments, or public communication resources. These tasks would give students experience with the costs, regulations, and evidence that shape decisions in their future professions. Faculty could connect these investigations with research, using student findings to document local cases and identify questions for further testing. Existing sustainability reporting could provide data for coursework, while the Sustainability Commission could help coordinate activities across the university.

Developing this cooperation would require partners and faculty to agree on specific questions, suitable courses, and achievable outputs within each semester. Clear learning objectives and partner feedback would help projects serve both educational and practical needs. Findings should be returned in a form partners can use, with records enabling later classes to build on earlier work. Â鶹ÊÓƵ offers a framework for sustaining these connections through existing teaching, making activities such as testing marble waste or explaining recovery processes in English part of how students learn their profession and contribute to their region.

Partnership Contact Information

Dr. Pelin Sertyesilisik
psertyesilisik@aku.edu.tr