Welcome to a new module! Begin by watching the video below to see what you can do in this lesson…
Module 2.1 Overview
- Engage a video of human and natural environments.
- Explore a series of examples at home actions you can take.
- Explain the design process and defining success.
- Elaborate creating a solution design and setting a goal.
- Evaluate by reporting on your plan and reflecting on your goals.
Learning Targets
- I can research a topic.
- I can gather evidence.
- I can design an environmental action project.
Materials
- Online access to the SOA website (Smartphone capable)
- Journal or blank paper
- 1 or 2 pencils
Engage
Watch the video that searches for signs of life in two different environments environments.
Discussion or Written Response
What do you notice about the environments? What do you wonder? What does this remind you of?
Explore
In the last module we partnered with birds to understand the health of our environment. Most of us probably found that our outdoor spaces could use some improvement. In this module you will have the opportunity to develop an action plan to improve the health of your community. Our partners over at NorthBay are making awesome videos about action projects they are doing. Click this link to see some of the projects to gain inspiration for your own project. Do you see anything you might want to try? Would you want to do something different?
Explain
In this section, we will outline some vocabulary that might be helpful in the lesson, as well as some theory and background on the principles used.
Vocabulary
- Action– Starting or stopping a behavior.
- Evidence- Facts in support of an idea or belief.
- Design- A detailed plan.
- Inquire- To investigate or look into a question.
Background
Note: a lot of this information is covered in Mr. Lippy’s explanation video. If you learn better by watching than by reading, feel free to see his detailed walkthrough video by clicking here.
Creating projects that help improve the world around us can be an incredibly fun experience. However designing them in a way that make solutions long term can be challenging. It is worth taking the time to commit to high quality work if we want our community to become healthier. In order to help us in creating our action projects we will be using the Solution Design Process (an adaptation of the Engineering Design Process and Seed-Scale). There are a lot of different pieces to the Solution Design Process so it can be easy to become overwhelmed. In order to keep things simple we are going to focus on only 3 main components for now; inquiry, building from success, and deciding from evidence. The rest of the process will start to make more sense as you work through the rest of Module 2.
The Solution Design Process starts with an inquiry (or question) to explore. Our inquiry is simply the question we are trying to answer through the action we are taking. In Mr. Lippy’s example he wanted to make a compost bin to reduce his families food waste, so his question was: How can I make a compost bin efficient enough to process all of my families food scraps? This question is what is constantly guiding Mr. Lippy’s experiment with composting and is the question he returns to at the end of a trial. It is important that you develop a good working inquiry for your project in order to keep your work focused.
Another crucial principle to help you design your project is to build from success. This means you should pick an action project that is based on something you or your family has done in the past that worked. In Mr. Lippy’s example he had done some composting in the past and was building his project from that experience and bringing it to a new community (his apartment). Perhaps your family has grown some flowers before and you can expand on that by making a pollinator garden. Or maybe you have written a persuasive letter at school and want to write a letter to your local government about making decisions that help mitigate climate change. Building from a past success ensures that your project is doable, and increases your chances of being successful this time. Once you have success in your initial trial you can build from there into a larger scale project. In Mr. Lippy’s example he had some success in the small compost bin and then after the first cycle of the Solution Design Process he expanded on those successes by creating a larger bin.
The final component of the Solution Design Process that we will discuss in this lesson is deciding from evidence. It is easy to make decisions about what to do based on our feelings, and our feelings are important! Our feelings can often lead us towards making some truly creative projects that we are passionate about. However as a master solution designer you will want to make sure your decisions are made based on evidence. As you are working through your action project you will need to do some research to find evidence to guide how you conduct your project. You will also want to make changes to your project based on evidence. Finally, you will want to gather evidence to prove if your project was successful or not. In Mr. Lippy’s example he did some research on composting and found a few examples of systems that worked to base his design off of. Also after researching ways to make his system more efficient he found evidence that worms can help break down compost faster, so he added them. Finally he is recording how much trash his family produces, and how often his compost bin overflows to determine if his project is a success or not. Evidence based decisions will help you know what to do to make your project better and to have confidence in your projects successes.
This week pay extra attention to developing a good inquiry question, finding a past success to build from, and gathering evidence to base decisions on. If you focus your attention on these three things and work through the worksheet below. You will have the beginnings of an incredibly well thought out design, with high chances of success.
In summary
- Guiding inquiry questions are important to focus your action projects.
- Building from a past success will help you create a project you have the skills and experience to make work and grow later.
- Deciding from evidence ensures your project and decisions are based on truth.
Elaborate
Step 1
Pick an action project. After watching the NorthBay action videos think about some projects you have done in the past. Are there any success you can build from that would improve your environmental community?
Step 2
Gather the materials you need; 1 piece of paper, 1 or 2 pencils, or a print out of the Solution Design Process worksheet below.
Step 3
Answer the questions from the Solution Design Process worksheet. Draft a model of your action project.
Evaluate
Submit your answers to the questions on the Solution Design Process Worksheet. Include an image of a model of your project.
