Saving the Planet, Saving Lives
Knowledge Building Design Studio (KBDS) November 2021 brought together over 50 teachers, students, researchers, and experts to knowledge build on the big idea of ‘Saving Planet, Saving Lives’. The KBDS was conducted virtually over two consecutive days and the participants worked together to tackle authentic problems and produce innovative ideas for advancing community knowledge on sustainability. Students’ collaborative discourse was supported by the use of Knowledge Forum (KF) and breakout sessions on Zoom.
Dr Lim sharing findings about strays in Singapore.
THE COMMUNITY
On Day 1, Dr Norman Lim, a scientist from NIE, engaged students with his research work on stray animals in Singapore. Students were introduced to the bigger problems of pet ownership via community discussions, and they also gained research insights on the impact of stray animals on the environment and humans.
Dr Erik explaining how the brain works for different people and personalities.
Dr Erik Jahner, a neuroscientist from the University of California Riverside, subsequently engaged students with neuroscience evidence on brain creativity and the role of emotions in learning. The community discussion helped students to understand how the brain works in creative people and how emotions can influence the way they learn and recall information. For example, students learnt to appreciate that creative people are more open to diverse perspectives and that feelings of frustration during learning can actually be helpful to learning. The discussion further helped students to understand that the emotion surveys that were conducted throughout the two-day studio allowed students themselves and the analysts to better understand the role of emotions in learning.
The motivating talks and community discussions led by Dr Norman and Dr Erik served to galvanise students to start off with an open mindset to develop unique and creative solutions for tackling problems that they were genuinely interested in.
For the remainder of the morning, students collectively generated areas of inquiry on "Saving the Planet, Saving Lives”. A total of five areas of interest were initiated by the students, namely, animals and humans, food wastage, global warming, renewable energy and the plastic problem. After a hearty lunch, the students joined these interest groups to inquire deeper into the respective areas.
To support students in developing their ideas, we invited another guest speaker to share about the importance of biodiversity on our planet.
Yeen Nie sharing her insights about insect health and their role in supporting a thriving Earth.
Yeen Nie, a journalist and documentary producer from CNA, shared with students about biodiversity, sustainability and insect health. From the talk, students understood the importance of little “heroes”, like ants, bees and spiders in supporting a thriving planet. Students were able to take on diverse perspectives of the role of animals, which gave them a better understanding of the need and urgency to protect different animal species on Earth.
EVERYONE IS A VALID CONTRIBUTOR TO THE COMMUNITY KNOWLEDGE.
On the second day, students interacted with analytics to see emerging ideas across group discussions for sustaining their inquiry. Leanna Ma, a researcher from the University of Toronto, shared with students the analytics feedback that she had conducted on their KF notes and encouraged students to explore the analytics on their own. Through the visualisation of other groups’ ideas using the analytics, students were able to identity interesting words that can be brought into their discussions to develop new connections and improve ideas.
Day 2 continued with cross-group interactions where student representatives were involved in another breakout discussion. From the breakout discussion, they brought new ideas shared back to their interest group to support their group’s idea improvement. In addition, a “KF community” time was included for students to share their journey of thinking. In this large group discussion, students shared their reflections based on what they used to think and what they now know.
This trend of thoughts, also coined as a “Journey of Thinking”, supported students in visualising how their ideas grew were able to connect key ideas across groups. A common focus from the various groups was the students’ interest in pushing for a change in mindset towards saving the planet. For example, the “animals and humans” group felt that by raising awareness of how humans are hurting animals, it will change people’s mindsets about consuming meat, while the “plastic problem” group wanted to know more about how people’s mindset can be changed to reduce plastic wastage.
Students sharing their Journey of Thinking on the Knowledge Forum.
Students used the rest of the day to create artefacts and prototypes based on their improved ideas. They created several artefacts such as websites to encourage people to take care of animals with steps on how to co-live with animals, or posters to raise awareness of global warming and to encourage the public to reduce their plastic usage. These artefacts showed new ideas from students to tackle sustainability problems, and demonstrated how they advanced community knowledge together. Day 2 ended with a rise above session for students to see new gaps and connections from their ideas that they can explored further.
One group of students created a website on taking care of animals.
Posters about global warming were among the few topics shared by some groups.
Throughout the two days, the students showed high levels of epistemic agency where they had identified problems that they wanted to explore further, worked with diverse ideas and information and rose above to see connections at the cutting-edge. By participating in the Design Studio, students were able to deepen their interests in causes they believe in and continue to develop a deeper understanding of their roles in saving the planet and saving lives.
To extend the work that the students had done, Jaslyn Pang, a representative from the National Youth Council, shared with students about the Youth Changemakers Grant, that they can apply to extend their work beyond the Design Studio. This is an opportunity for students to bring their ideas from the Knowledge Building into the society and also contribute back to the larger society.
As the year 2021 comes to an end, we hope knowledge builders are able to continue their efforts from the Knowledge Building Design Studio, pursue opportunities and extend their work about novel solutions, bring these solutions to the general public and share them as public good.