Contents What is Design Thinking 4 The Design-Thinking Process 6 Empathize 8 Define 10 Ideate 12 Prototype 14 Test 16 Reflect 18 Increasing Pollution 20 PROJECT CASE Effects of Marine Debris on Leatherback Sea Turtles 22 CASE Treating Birds Impacted by Oil Spills 23 CASE Effects of Climate Change on Family Fisheries 24 DESIGN THINKING IN PRACTICE Reducing Pollution 26 Impact of Non-renewable Energy 28 PROJECT CASE Effects of Burning Coal on Air Quality 30 CASE Effects of Oil Sand Tailings Ponds on Migrating Ducks 31 CASE The Dakota Access Pipeline and the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation 32 DESIGN THINKING IN PRACTICE Promoting Renewable Energy 34 Large Ecological Footprints 36 PROJECT CASE Effects of Urbanization on Birds 38 CASE Deforestation and Habitat Loss 39 Increasing Waste in Communities 40 CASE DESIGN THINKING IN PRACTICE Reducing Our Ecological Footprint 42 What’s Next for Design Thinking 44 Learning More 45 Source Links 45 Glossary 47 Index 48 About the Author 48
What is Design Thinking Do you want to improve the world around you Design thinking can help you to become a change maker Design thinking is a step-by-step process to solve real problems faced by real people It starts with empathy Empathy means understanding the feelings and perspectives of others Empathy helps you focus on people’s unique problems and develop solutions for them Green communities are environmentally friendly and have green spaces or spaces with plants and trees You can increase the amount of green space in your community by planting trees Focus on the User The user is the person group or community who is facing a problem A solution focused on the user is more likely to succeed Design thinkers may fail on their first attempt to solve a user’s problem that’s okay Use what you learned to improve the next version of the design solution This is called failing forward We are all responsible for protecting the global environment 4
meet a change maker Where Did Design Thinking Come From Problem solvers have used design thinking for many years though they called it different names Today people of all ages and backgrounds use design thinking as a guide to becoming change makers in their communities Community Connections Everyone is part of a community A community is a place where people live work and play A community can be small like your neighborhood or large like your country or even the world This book is about green communities so you will learn how to use design thinking to come up with solutions that help communities be environmentally friendly Green community members think globally and act locally This means that they think about the health of the entire planet and take action in their own communities to fix environmental issues People in green communities try to live in ways that minimize or lessen their impact on the environment People in green communities improve and protect the environment closest to them In turn this helps protect the global environment that we all share Simon Jackson Saving the Spirit Bear Design Thinking in the Real World Simon Jackson saw his first bear while camping at the age of 7 He learned that one type of bear the spirit bear was threatened with extinction People hunted them for sport and their habitat was being destroyed by activities such as deforestation He studied the problem facing the bears and realized that they needed a habitat safe from hunting and logging When he was 13 Simon started the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition He talked to students politicians and environmentalists to raise awareness about the problem that the spirit bears were facing His campaign connected with more than six million people in 87 countries He asked people to protect the bears from hunting and habitat destruction As a result of his work more than two-thirds of the spirit bear’s habitat in British Columbia Canada is now protected The spirit bear is white but isn’t a polar bear It is a black bear that has a rare genetic trait that makes it white instead of black 5
