Hi and welcome to your design field trip. I'm Tiffany, an educator at Cooper Hewitt's Smithsonian Design Museum. Today we're going to be learning about design and how we might use design to solve problems and take action in your community. Before we can do that though, let's talk about what design is. When you hear the word design, what do you think it means? What are things that you think of when you hear the word design? Pause for a moment and look around the room that you're in. Can you find an example of design? Choose one object that you think is a good example of design. What did you choose? Some of you might have chosen the chair you're sitting in or the water bottle you're drinking out of. The clothes you're wearing, the pencil you use, there are so many examples of design because design is all around us. Everything that was made was designed. Many designers focus their work on solving problems in the world around them. Whether it's where we live, how we get around, or making sure everyone is included. Designers work to come up with solutions that will meet the needs of the people who are using their designs. One very important problem that designers are working to solve right now is the problem of climate change. Have you heard the word climate change before? Take a moment and consider what you think of when you hear the phrase climate change. Climate change affects everyone. The phrase climate change refers to long-term changes in temperature. The earth's surface is warming faster than it ever has before, causing changes in the earth's climate. This affects things like fresh waterways, the oceans, glaciers, forests, and the atmosphere. These changes create a domino effect of problems that are putting at risk the survival of species of plants and animals. It also affects the availability of the earth's natural resources. So I think you can see why it's a pretty big problem. That's why designers are joining teams all over the world to design solutions for a more sustainable earth and to do everything that we can to reverse the effects of climate change. Let's take a look at a few designs that are helping to make the world a more sustainable place. Check out how designers in Ho Chi Minh City have designed for a greener city at F.P.T. University. Rapid urban development in Vietnamese cities has eclipsed urban greenways. Designed to suggest a growing mountain, this university building features staggered floors and closing a part filled with trees and plants. These green elements extend from the central courtyard to the balconies, terraces, and the circulation walls. These trees facilitate shade and cooling. They improve air quality and reduce the need for energy consuming air conditioning. Here's another example. Fresh moves mobile markets. Designed to recycle decommission transit buses and convert them into mobile farm stands. Fresh moves mobile markets brings healthy, affordable, and locally grown produce to underserved neighborhoods in Chicago. Not only does this design promote sustainable farming, recycling resources, and fostering health and wellness, but it's also meeting the needs of communities that are lacking in access to fresh food and groceries. Now that we've seen some inspiration on how designers are working to make the world a more sustainable and greener place, we're going to think like designers ourselves. Let's get started. To get going, all you need is something to write with, something to write on, and your best design creativity and imagination. The first thing that designers do is that they identify problems and decide what they're going to design. To help you to define your design challenge, we're going to give you a design madlib using your writing tool and paper right down the numbers one through four, like you see on the screen. You'll see a series of prompts next to each number. Respond to the prompts using one word or in some cases a letter. Number one, choose a letter between A through E. So next to number one, write down either ABCD or E. Choose one. Number two, write down the name of a person. This can be any person. It can be your friend, your neighbor, your teacher. It could also be a fictional character or someone you know of. Number three, write down the name of a place you haven't been. This could be anywhere. It could be a park that you've wanted to go to but haven't quite gotten there yet. It could be a different country that you haven't been to anywhere that you can think of that you haven't been. Next to number four, you're going to choose a different letter this time between A and D. So ABCD choose one of those letters and write it down next to number four. Take a moment and write down your answers to these four prompts. Great. Now that you've finished writing those out, go back to number one where you wrote a letter A through E. Next to number one, replace the letter with the corresponding word that you see on the screen. For example, if you wrote down letter B, you would replace B next to number one with the words n apartment. If you chose letter D, you would write down next to number one a camper. Now go down to number four and do the same thing with whichever letter you chose for number four. Replace it with the word that you see on the screen. So for example, if you wrote letter C next to number four, you would now write protects against rising sea levels. If you chose number A next to number one, you would say filters rainwater. Now for the big reveal, are you excited to see your design challenge? From Rolls-Please! Here is your design challenge. Fill in the blanks with your answers to number one through four. So your design challenge should read like this. How might we design a type of home for a person to live in or on in a place you haven't been that helps to solve an environmental issue? We went through this design challenge too. So here's what our mad lib looks like. Design a tree house for baby Yoda to live in or on the moon that filters rainwater. This is what we came up with, but yours will be different. Now that you have your design challenge, it's time to start designing. The next step in your design process will be brainstorming. To brainstorm, you come up with as many ideas as possible. Go crazy and don't limit yourself. You can brainstorm by drawing pictures, writing down lists, or just talking it out using your piece of paper and writing utensil. Take a moment and come up with as many ideas as you can to solve your design challenge. Here's some questions to consider as you brainstorm your ideas. Who are you designing for? This will be the person that you chose and that will be your user. What does your user need? What are the things that might help or make more comfortable your user's experience of your design? What will your design look like? Does your design have any special features or functions? Great job brainstorming all of your design solutions. After designer's brainstorm, they choose which of their ideas they like best. Then they build a prototype or a model, which will help them to show and test their ideas and designs. This can help to know which things need to be adjusted, fixed, or reconsidered. It's an important step before launching your ideas into the world. We have so much fun today and using a madlet can be a great way to help us experiment and come up with wild ideas for our designs. But how can we take our design skills further? Once we get warmed up, it's important that we look at real-world challenges that impact our communities and our world. Let's use design to make a difference. Take a moment and think about how you can use what you learned today to take action in your school, your home, or your community to help protect the future of our planet. Design is empowering and it's so important to share your ideas for change. We challenge you to share what you've learned and designed today and then continue the conversation about designing for climate change with your teachers, families, friends, and community. We would love to see what you designed and how you are thinking about making change. Your teacher can share your class's ideas on social media using the hashtag Smithsonian EDU. On the hashtag, you can also see how other students are designing for change and thinking about the future. For more design inspiration, you can head over to our website, CooperHewet.org or check out our page on the Smithsonian Learning Lab. Thank you so much for joining us today. Whether it's at our museum in New York City or over a virtual setting, we hope to see you again. Bye!