This blog post reports on work-in-progress within the Design for Government (DfG) course! The post is written in collaboration with the three groups dealing with the project brief ‘Boosting climate education’ provided by the Ministry of Environment (YM) in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Finnish National Agency for Education (OPH) and the ORSI research project. The group includes Paula Ikonen, Aybars Senyildiz, Zhengshuang Han, Aman Asif, Maddalena Galloni and Noah Peysson from the Creative Sustainability program, as well as Wen Yap, Felix Zelck, Jelske Van de Ven, Suvi Majander and Emma van Dormalen from the Collaborative and Industrial Design program.
During the second week of the 2020 DfG class, we had the opportunity to host a workshop gathering participants from the Ministry of Environment, the ORSI project and SYKLI Environmental School of Finland, amongst others. Exploring the “Boosting climate education” project brief, the workshop was separated into three parts: first, each participant presenting current and dream climate education states, second a reflection on the different opportunities and obstacles to reach the dream climate education state and third, a stakeholder mapping activity listing the possible institutions and individuals that could be seen as either allies or skeptics in steering change into the desired direction.
As already mentioned, this year’s project is dealing with the topic of climate education in Finland. With the recently announced ambitious targets of carbon neutrality by 2035, there is a need to shape the next generation of climate-conscious citizens which would both ask and accelerate change. However, there is also a gap between the governmental objectives and the actual teaching. This workshop’s purpose was to understand the underlying problems more clearly.
During the workshop, we used post-its, pre-designed bubbles, and other signs to allow our participants to share information in a fun and time-efficient way. Our two facilitators led the discussion in an inclusive way, giving every stakeholder the opportunity to share their thoughts. Furthermore, we had the possibility to reflect on what the brief included and what wasn’t mentioned yet.
“I have a lot of notes and these are all for my day jobs. I’ll take lots of ideas and connections and I will probably contact people from this group with my ideas or questions. Thank you so much for the opportunity, it was interesting.”
– A participant closing words on the workshop
This workshop gave us a better understanding of the current issues in climate education, provided us insights on the stakeholder’s perspective, and allowed us to have a more precise project roadmap. The team will split into three smaller ones and are excited to work on this project in the coming weeks as they will each approach it from a different angle.
The DfG course runs for 14 weeks each spring – the 2020 course has now started and runs 25 Feb to 19 May. It’s an advanced studio course in which students work in multidisciplinary teams to address project briefs commissioned by governmental ministries in Finland. The course proceeds through the spring as a series of teaching modules in which various research and design methods are applied to addressing the project briefs. Blog posts are written by student groups, in which they share news, experiences and insights from within the course activities and their project development. More information here about the DfG 2020 project briefs. Hold the date for the public finale 09:00-12:00 on Tuesday 19 May!