The topic or area of concern that I would like to explore is climate change. Now I know I won’t be able to fix climate change all together. My goal is to find and inform citizens of Duluth certain little tips and tricks to reduce their carbon footprint and become greener. Daily tasks that many people may not know about but can make a big difference on the environment.
Well in the terms of climate change I don’t think many people know the true facts or impacts of what they do everyday. I also believe that people need more information on how to help reduce their impact and preserve the planet, there are many places where you can find misinformation or censored information because the government doesn’t want to believe in climate change and that hurts the chances of helping to slow or stop it. So getting more information out their for people so they can help change.
I could use design thinking by starting with this problem of becoming greener in our everyday lives. Talk to residents in Duluth to see what they are or aren’t doing and then listen to why or why not they are doing some of these things to think like the audience I would be trying to persuade in a sense. I could also talk to scientists and researchers who specialize in climate change and become greener and ask what they think could help the environment that everyone is able to do everyday. I would also contact clubs around the universities to see if they are living up to what they believe in and changing their habits to become greener.
I would come out with a plan or proposal to ask people if they could complete these certain tasks in a day and if it works then it could be a solution to the problem, if not then I keep listening to them and figure out a new plan that would work for every person.
From the first conversation with my classmates I learned that they are many people who believe in what I believe in and asked questions that helped me narrow down exactly where I wanted my focus of this project to be. They helped me figure out a plan and visualize a website that would be successful in solving this problem.
One example that really caught my eye was “A New Kind of Community Strategy at Fusion” because they really focused on the community and listening to them and creating a solution that fit the average person’s needs not a specific person. They also create stronger connections and relationships with the people in the community that helps grow their solution.
I think my logical next steps would be to talk to people and learn about their concerns and questions about my problem. Talk to experts on this topic and figure out what the two have in common to find a base that we can build off of.
Empathy will play a huge role in my project. Being able to talk to people and hear their reasons and concerns and what they believe. This will only help strengthen the solution of the problem by having the solution tailored to a community member of Duluth that many other people can relate to and not some scientist that not many people can relate to. Listening is the key here and being able to act on what was heard to frame the right solution.
Jacob's Blog 