For over a decade Lara Hoad has been teaching the Rise Above Plastics class in the Creative Action Department at Otis College of Art and Design.  With a focus on the reduction, reuse and refusal of single-use plastics, the class has partnered with environmental non-profit organizations such as Surfrider Foundation and 5 Gyres, and has engaged multi-disciplinary teams of students to create projects to raise awareness and change behavior around the production and consumption of single-use plastics.  The class has produced hundreds of creative ideas, many of which have been implemented as public art and design installations and interventions, and have contributed to the wave of bans and regulations of single-use plastic products in the state of California.