The purpose of this presentation is to share the outcomes of an interdisciplinary course within a pre-service music education program at a large North American university, where pre-service teachers built musical instruments from discarded materials. These included recycled plastics, glass, and metal residues. Pre-service teachers designed a series of learning activities that linked ecology, organology, and music education to address “the most pressing issue of our time” (Shevock & Bates, 2019, p. 15): waste production. Since “education is an active and constructive process” (Dewey, 1916, p. 24), we provided future teachers with tools and physical materials, or “agencies for doing” (p. 24), to encourage reflection on their learning. By treating handmade instruments as real-world tools, pre-service teachers gained a sense of purpose and a call to action (Dewey, 1938), connecting creativity with sustainability. Using essential questions such as “What materials are most harmful to the environment?” or “How can we build instruments to perform in and out of the classroom?”, students examined single-use plastics, material decomposition, and sound properties. They engaged in cross-disciplinary learning, starting with material classification by timbre, dynamics, and duration, setting goals for waste reduction while becoming “aware of belief systems that influence what is considered normal, or alternative, or simply unthinkable” (Joseph, 2007, p. 286). These goals may be “antithetical to corporate goals” (Koza, 2006, p. 34), where industrial society’s innovation often produces waste (Shevock, 2020). Students’ organological explorations, such as rubber-band chordophones, glass aerophones, or percussion idiophones, challenged hierarchical models that privilege harmony and pitch, as well as the unsustainable practices of the instrument industry and the obsolescence of new technologies (Shevock, 2020). In light of emerging research on eco-literacy in academia (Kosa, 2006; Rolle, 2024; Shevock, 2019), this presentation seeks to bridge the gap between theory and practice. By encouraging pre-service teachers to explore the integration of music and ecology, we teach them to be mindful of our planet’s “limits to growth” (Titon, 2009, p. 123) and to embrace their role in educating young people (Shevock & Bates, 2019). A curriculum developed as a “group process” (Joseph, 2000, p. 119), where students work to transform a culture of waste into one of sound, is not only teacher preparation but a necessary step for survival. Reimagining music education through eco-pedagogy builds bridges across disciplines and generations, where “small actions make for big change” (Goodall, 2025).