One of the growing trends in fashion is called up-cycling. Up-cycling gives old or discarded clothing a better purpose through a process which converts it into something useful and often beautiful.
Design Challenge 31: Up-cycling Fashion
Design Challenge 30: Outdoor Learning Spaces
Students have limited opportunities to learn outdoors. For example, one school representative reported four picnic tables for 1,250 students. So when these students might have times during the day to enjoy the benefits obtained from learning outside, there were few places to sit or study or enjoy a conversation. While picnic tables have typically been used as outdoor furniture, they are not the most
flexible or comfortable form of seating. Also, they are not necessary ergonomically sound or easily moved! Over time, schools would like to increase outdoor learning opportunities by creating learning spaces that support learning, healthy lifestyles, and fitness.
Design Challenge 29: Outdoor Classroom
What is an outdoor classroom? It is a gathering place for teachers and students to integrate nature into learning within the school grounds. It brings learning to life by situating formal learning within a school’s natural environment and giving students the opportunity to get outside and experience nature.
Design Challenge 28: Inclusive Playgrounds
“Children with disabilities are often excluded from or restrained in play activities because of the physical barriers of play structures and the surrounding environment,” (Ripat & Becker, 2012).
Organizations and foundations, like the Rick Hansen Foundation, recognize children with disabilities require active play opportunities.
Design Challenge 27: Stimulating Our Senses
Many schools have students with diverse learning needs. Sometimes, it is the simplest of tools or toys that can make a difference and support a student’s learning in wonderful and powerful ways. For example, students who have sensory processing challenges struggle to learn through their senses as the majority of us do.
Design Challenge 25: Alternative Dwellings
Most of our building supplies come from natural resources—trees, stones, brick, adobe, etc. Unfortunately not all of the resources available are suitable for building materials. As these natural resources are being consumed, builders are beginning to question how might they use alternative materials or unusual materials to build homes within our communities.
Design Challenge 23: Eco-smart Recreation Facility
Developers are becoming increasingly interested in designing structures that are properly suited for their environments. Structures that are not designed this way are prone to damage from catastrophic environmental events such as flooding. According to the Alberta Provincial Flood Damage Assessment Study (https://www.alberta.ca/albertacode/images/pfdas-alberta-main.pdf), damage from flooding in Alberta has cost billions of dollars over the last decade. Without proper mitigation, cities must repeatedly repair and rebuild structures in flood areas at great expense.
Design Challenge 22: Developing Historical Empathy
The study of a country’s history and evolution requires more than the memorization of dates, names and facts. Historians need to develop a deep understanding of the confounding circumstances of events, including people, places, cultures, politics, and many other factors. Coming to know why things happened the way they did is as important as knowing what happened and when. As Jill Lepore said, “The study of our history requires investigation, imagination, empathy and respect,” (The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History, 2010).
Design Challenge 20: Displaced Students
The population boom, immigration, and rural families continuing to move into urban centres have taxed the capacity of schools to accommodate students in their immediate area. Not so many years ago, children walked or rode their bikes to their neighbourhood schools. However, increasingly urban centres are building large community schools to accommodate students being bussed or driven from multiple neighbourhoods. As a result, more and more students feel alienated and isolated, like strangers in their schools. A challenge becomes how to create initial and ongoing experiences for new students so they can increasingly feel welcomed; build relationships with their fellow students, teachers, and staff; find their place; and gradually become active members of their school communities.
Design Challenge 19: Apathy to Empathy
Thanks to social media and an almost continuous news cycle (e.g. television, radio, newspapers, etc.), we are provided many glimpses into global events, both happy and tragic, on a daily basis.
Some suggest social media has made our society apathetic to the world around us. Others propose that we are merely sympathetic to tragedies in a superficial, short-term way because another tragedy is always being reported. Initiatives like Fight Apathy and Me to We attempt to mobilize youth to make a difference and move from apathy to sympathy to empathy.