Presentations

Our last day at LCCS comprised of mini presentations by Parsons and LCCS students for the LCCS teachers and parents. At the end of my team’s presentation, our LCCS teammates had the opportunity to talk about their experiences and explain some aspects of Trash Trivia to the audience. Hearing them express how they found the co-design process and seeing them reflect on their experiences gave us valuable insight into the co-design process itself. The students commented positively about how they felt part of the process and liked seeing their drawings made into animations. It was very obvious for me when I was editing the short summary video that the students actually had a lot of say in all aspects of the game. Equally importantly, every person was involved in one aspect of Trash Trivia or another in one way or another. The summary video in my opinion shows this quite well as there are scenes showing everyone engaged. Finally, seeing the students’ reaction to the video was quite nice, especially when the students saw themselves in the video.

Chatting over pizza

After the presentations, the Parsons and LCCS students mingled over pizza. I found this part really enjoyable because we were in a social context, which was different from the co-design or teaching contexts we were in before. We made jokes and asked each other non-class-related questions which for me personally felt like it allowed me to see them in a different light. I enjoyed getting to know everyone and thoroughly enjoyed working with such smart kids.

Rise & Shine: A 7am Start

Earth Day started at 7am with everyone helping to construct the dome. The dome was custom-designed for Earth Day specifically and required true collaborative spirit to assemble the many small pieces together. Once we felt that this was going quite well, Raquel and I started fixing and setting up our Trash Trivia tent just before 9am.

Wind & Sailor Skills

Around this time was when I realised just exactly how windy the day was as we were trying to tie the bottom of the tent to sandbags to secure and prevent them from flying away. This required some real strength. As I went around the tent tying the bottom to sandbags every yard or so, my hands got cold, scratched, and rough like sandpaper. At some point, Raquel and I felt quite hopeless as it seemed that whatever we tried the tent still looked like a dress being blown up by the wind. The tying system we tried to implement seemed to be not working. Not only that the bottom of the tent was a problem, there was too much light coming in through the gap between the tent material making up the tent wall and the roof of the tent. We decided that one of us would have to go around the tent, lift it up at several points like a superwoman, and duct-tape the tent fabric to the metal rail at the top supporting the tent to ensure there is no gap at the top. Raquel did a great job of being the superwoman!

The Game Starts

When the game started, Iba was our first MC. He had the cheat sheet we sent out the week before on his phone and did a really great job of hosting the first game. Below is a short video showing his and another game.

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Although the wind was very strong, and it was cold, we still had lots of fun on the day and everyone who participated in our game seemed to enjoy it. I especially liked seeing both the parents and kids get excited about the game and, in some cases, seeing them compete against each other. One kid continued to play after his first game and ended up playing 3 out of the 4 games that we had prepared. There were two families at least that divided into two teams and competed against each other. As with any project, there were things that can be iterated on and improved for the next time but overall despite the cold and the wind, Trash Trivia managed to be an engaging game.

Thank You!

Thanks Iba and Ailish for coming out to be with us despite the weather, and thank you Anezka and Tammy for the mini happy hour after the event!

P.S. Below is a short 2 min video summing up our experience! We plan to show this film during our LCCS presentation as well.

Change of Plan

We did mini presentations this week about our journey making the projects materialize. Prior to the presentations I decided that the PowerPoint version of our game was too glitchy with too much delay between the different gifs playing, and to transfer the game onto a different platform – Unity. This was a good decision in the sense that the interactions and user interface could be designed to be much more intuitive.

Progress video:

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Halfway our presentation my laptop battery decided to suddenly die and it took us some time to get back on track. Below is the deck we prepared for the presentation:

GoogleSlides Deck

Main Takeaways

• Maturity is not bound by age
• Giving tasks/engaging the students in the making process kept them focused
• Contribution translates to ownership
• Idea generation by the students was really great. More work needed on materializing the ideas.
• Interestingly, the students alternated taking control of execution: Jeet -> Kamali -> Pearl -> Iba -> Ailish etc etc.
• Group dynamics was interesting to observe – friends can bounce ideas off each other and there is healthy competition between them, but at times being with your friends can also be distracting.

Food for Thought: Piagetian Learning

In one of the readings, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas by Seymour Papert, he talks about a specific type of learning called Piagetian learning. Piagetian learning is described as learning without curriculum, or learning that happens without deliberate teaching. The student is driven by their own curiosity to explore, play and create and through this experience they learn new things about the world, and their surroundings. In several ways I felt that the Trash Trivia experience was like the Piagetian learning described here. There was of course the general scaffolding put in place, but the students were completely free to materialise any project idea they come up with as long as they are enthusiastic about it and remain engaged. Trash Trivia morphed and progressed as the children made new discoveries: like how the questions need to be as fun as they are educational otherwise it gets boring, or that we cannot spend more than X number of minutes on one question otherwise everyone gets less engaged in the game and so on. There are many benefits to such an organic process; in my opinion the most important one is that the children learn to make decisions, and become independent learners. It’s a way of building resilience, an especially important factor given the uncertainty of our times.

But how do we balance giving direction and structure with giving freedom to explore and be creative, the kind of balance that ensures quality learning and quality project outputs?

Trash Trivia, and Ed Tech & Design Thinking in general, has been a great opportunity for me to start to tackle this question.

On our final LCCS visit, our team prioritized the following items:

Trash Trivia questions

We went over some of the questions and asked the students to come up with 1 fun question each. An example we gave them was: What would a visiting alien say is a huge problem on Earth?

Questions we collectively came up with are:

Whose fault is it that we are consuming plastic?

• Corporations
• -Factories
• -Fish
• -People
• -Plastic

What are the qualities of plastic? / If plastic were a person, what would their personality be like?

• Sneaky
• *Slippery
• Annoying
• Mean
• Fake
• Scapegoat

Costume/outfit for Earth Day

Ailisha suggested we use lots of leaves to cover the top of the torso completely and we decided to go with green and/or brown coloured outfit for the Earth Day final showcase. The leaves could be made of stiff paper or scrap fabrics.

Tent interior

Can be decorated with draped fabrics creating volume in certain parts of the tent. Richard made two suggestions: we make a green/brownish stream out of the fabrics; we put pots of trash inside the tent at different corners – but keep it simple/minimalistic/clean and maybe only use plastic bottles. Raquel and I decided to check out the NYC based scrap fabric recycler FabScrap at the wharehouse to source some materials for our tent interior decoration and Earth Day outfits.

 

Trash Trivia PowerPoint

Some aesthetic questions were addressed such as displaying the question at the top of the answer box, using a different layout that makes it obvious how many points a question is worth.

 

MC Script

Richard prepared a script for us to use on Earth Day based on his experience of Play Tech.

MC Script

 

Intro:

Welcome to Trash Trivia!

A trivia that will make you smile, pollution won’t be worth your while.

Everyone get comfortable first, adjust yourself to the setting, and let me explain the rules:

There will be two teams of 3, each side of chairs representing who’s in what team.

To determine which team goes first, I will ask all of you to touch your noses. First team with all their members to do so, gets to go first.
Then the projection screen in front of you will display a series of questions, kind of like a family feud style game board.

 

The board will display a question that will have multiple possible answers.

The team that has been decided to go  first will take their first guess to answer the question.

If they get it right, they will earn as many points as each answer’s point worth.

At the bottom of a question will display each answer point worth in parenthesis.

Ex. (Each answer is worth 2 points)

However, if the team gets it wrong, they will receive no points at all.

 

Taking Turns:

Once a team has answered (regardless if they get it right or wrong), the opposing team will take their guess. Once they give their answer, their opposing team will guess again. This cycle continues until the question is fully answered or if the time limit runs out. Each question will have a time limit of 4 minutes!

Once the question is complete, we will advance on to the next question.

 

Objective:

Team with the most points win!

Let’s get started!

 

Correct Question Responses:

“That is correct! You get [insert number] points for answering correctly!”

“You guessed it! That would add [insert number] points to your total score!”

 

Incorrect Question Responses:

“That was a smart guess, but unfortunately it was incorrect.”

“Very bright answer, but sadly it wasn’t one of our top answers on the board.”

 

Transition

Take a moment to observe the answers on the board. Think to yourself what you found shocking or interesting.

*wait for 10 seconds*

Is everyone ready?

Okay great! Moving on to the next question!

 

Conclusion:

(speak with enthusiasm and suspense)

That would conclude our game! I hope you found it fun, but now we are to reveal the winner…

Drumroll please!

*dodododoododododododo*

(scorekeeper reveals total points of each team)

[Insert team name] is the winner!

But honestly, we all are the winners here for taking the time to play our game. It’s all about the knowledge gained during the experience. Mother nature is a beautiful thing and humans shouldn’t be harming it any further.

We should all treat our home with respect, but unfortunately not a lot of people know the truth behind pollution’s effects.

We thank you so much for your participation.

Have a nice day!

(on way out, someone hands out [biodegradable leafs] to participants)

Sound Effects

Raquel and I thought we should record some voiceovers of the kids saying things such as “That’s a creative answer, but it’s not what we’re looking for.” or “Better luck next time”. We wanted to use these instead of the current sound effect that plays everytime someone gets the answer wrong. But the kids liked the existing sound FX and thought it was fun. As a result we did not do the recording.

 

Schedule and tasks for Earth Day

MC schedule:

12-12.45pm Bolor/Raquel

12.45-1.30pm Iba/Alisha

1.30-2.15pm Kamali/Pearl

2.15-3pm Iba/Alisha

3-3.45pm Kamali/Pearl

Overview

The Play Tech experience was so much fun! We received a lot of feedback from our LCCS team which consisted of Richard and Ailisha on the day. We played two games with each game consisting of 3 questions (This took us good 45 minutes!). The teams that participated were made up of families, friends and, we’re quite certain, also kids who most likely just met on the day (i.e. who are not friends or from the same family). It appeared that the participants enjoyed the game and everyone, including the parents, engaged well with it.

Key Takeaways

1. Structure the game so that each game starts with an easy question, followed by a medium difficulty question and ends with a difficult question.

2. A buzzer or another system may be needed instead of the nose-touching to determine who goes first -> we decided to keep the nose-touching idea.

3. Strikes (X’s) on the PowerPoint are unnecessary – we did not use them as we allowed each team to take turns with the answers instead of following the exact Family Feud style where a team continues to give more answers until they get the answer wrong.

4. A contrast colour background for the questions would help highlight them better on the screen.

5. Simplify some answers to make them easier to guess: e.g. instead of listing South African countries individually as the right answers, one could simply say South Africa and receive the same points.

 

More to follow…

 

This week we stayed at Parsons and communicated with our team over Zoom. The main focus of the day was to get the kids’ opinion on the questions and involve them as much as possible in developing the structure of our game.

The kids rated the questions Raquel and I finalized (which consisted of questions the kids came up with as well as questions we ourselves came up with). We decided to allocate 1 point for every right answer to an easy question and 5 points for every right answer to a difficult question. Below are the ratings.

 

TRASH TRIVIA QUESTIONS

Trash Trivia LCCS team edited questions

1. (2) Name a species affected by water pollution… | Fish, Crabs, Birds, Sea Gulls, Dolphins, Sea Turtles, Sea Lions, and Manatee
2. (3) Name a commonly found form of pollution that lies within the ocean… | Plastic bags, food wrappers, plastic bottles, beverage cans, cigarettes
3. (3-4) What countries are most affected by waste? | Ghana, Philippians, Vietnam, India, China, Pakistan, Somalia, Indonesia
4. (3) Name something affected by air pollution… | People, crops, animals within the ecosystem, trees, the soil.
5. (3-4) What are the main causes of water pollution? | Human activity, Rapid Urban Development, Dumping of Chemical Wastes by Factories, Throwing plastic into the ocean, Oil spills, Use of Toxic Chemicals for the Plants (pesticides and harmful fertilizers)
6. (1) Which indoor home activities use the most water? | Toilet, Water from the tap, dishwasher, showering, Clothes washing
7. (3-4) Name an item that cannot be recycled… | Plastic shopping bags, Batteries, Styrofoam, Tires, Takeout containers, Disposable napkins and paper towels, plastic packaging (ex. candy wrappers), anything that is smaller than a post-it note (even if it is recyclable)
8. (2) Name something that can be recycled… | Paper, Glass, Plastic bottles, Tin and aluminium cans, cardboard
9. (3) Name a common species that is endangered or threatened by human activity… | Bees, Coral reefs, Sumatran Elephants, Birds, Whales, Hawksbill Sea Turtles, Mountain Gorilla, Black Rhino
10. (3) Name the causes that reduce the population of bees | Climate change, Habitat loss, Unsustainable agriculture, Pollution, Pesticides
11. (1) Name something you know about the earth… | Very old, Mostly water, Beautiful, Polluted, Round, full of humans
12. (1) Name something a visiting alien would say is a huge problem on earth… | Plastic/Waste/Landfills, Pollution, War, Human greed/Humans
13. (2) What are some things people can do to be more earth friendly? | Recycle, Plant trees, Use less paper / plastic, Use canvas bags instead of plastic, reduce water waste, Start a compost pile
14. (1) Oysters – single answer question?

We also received many interesting questions (both multiple answer ones and single answer ones) from the NY/NJ Baykeeper team and decided that the following questions are worth considering including in the Trash Trivia:

Family Feud-style questions sent by Elana (Baykeeper):

Question #1:

(3) An oyster reef, or living shoreline:

1. Protects the coastline against erosion
   2. Serves as speed bumps for waves during storms
   3. Acts a natural water filter.
   4. Creates habitat for marine life

Question #2:

(2) Protecting natural habitat and open space is essential because:

1. It protects water supplies.
   2. Improves water quality.
   3. Protects flood-prone areas.
2. Creates and improves parks.

Question #3:

According to the United Nations, plastics pollution impacts 267 species of marine life including:

1. seabirds
   2. whales
   3. turtles
2. sea lions
3. fish

 

Single-answer Baykeeper questions:

What is the first stage of life called for an Oyster?

• Larvae

What is an Oyster called once it has permanently attached to a surface?

• Spat

How many Oysters is NY/NJ Baykeeper incubating for 2019?

• 1.5 million.

How can Oyster reefs help prevent coastal flooding?

• During a storm, underwater oyster reefs act as a natural breakwater, absorbing wave energy before it hits the shore.

How do Oysters help improve water quality?

• Oysters are filter feeders, consuming phytoplankton and improving water quality while they filter their food from the water.

How many gallons of water can an oyster filter in a day?

• 50

According to NY/NJ Baykeeper research, about how many plastic particles are there polluting the Estuary?

• 165 million!

What type of plastic pollution was the most present, making up 38%, according to NY/NJ Baykeeper’s study?

• Foam.

How many single use styrofoam products are thrown away each year worldwide?

• 14 million tons.

How long does it take for styrofoam to biodegrade?

• Styrofoam never fully biodegrades.

What landmark is at the head of tide of the Hudson River?

• Troy Dam.

In what city is the head of tide located?

• Troy, NY

Where are the headwaters of the Hudson River located?

• Upper New York Bay.

Why is land conservation important for water quality?

• Land conservation is vital for water quality. Open space provides flood control, storm protection and clean air. When land is developed, permeable surfaces are replaced by impervious surfaces such as roads, roofs and parking lots and less permeable surfaces such as lawns. This increases stormwater runoff and is one of the most significant impacts to natural water systems.

What year did NY/NJ Baykeeper start fighting pollution and polluters?

• 1989

(2) In what ways can you reduce waste on a day to day basis?

• We can reduce our use of non-recycle-able products, reuse what we can, and recycle! Invest in reusable cups, totes and other household and travel products, and try to avoid single-use plastics such as straws, plastic cups, bags, cutlery and containers.

What is a more eco-friendly decoration to replace balloons?

• No balloons is definitely the way to go! Try reusable flags, banners and streamers instead!

(2) What is a good way to be chic and pro-green when shopping?

• Buy local– this reduces the amount of energy it takes to transport food to your table!
• Use resuable shopping bags.
• Try to buy products that are in recycled packaging.
• Shop less and avoid impulse shopping!
• Buy in bulk, which translates into less packaging.

Why are plastic straws out, and reusable cups in?

• Straws are one of the top single-use plastics that end up on our beaches and in our waterways. Reusable cups are a relatively inexpensive and eco-friendly way to go.

Why is going BYO with reusable products fun and eco-friendly?

• By using reusable products, we can reduce waste and reuse what we already have. With the dangers of plastic pollution on the rise, there are plenty of eco-friendly alternatives that can be stylish and convenient.

What is the largest a bog turtle can get?

• 4.5 inches.

When was the bog turtle listed as critically endangered?

• 1974.

What is a black skimmer?

• The black skimmer is a seabird.

When was the black skimmer first listed as endangered in New Jersey?

• 1979

Where does the black skimmer get its name?

• Its stark black and white plumage.

How does plastic pollution in the environment heavily affect the black skimmer?

• Seabirds like the black skimmer ingest plastic particles that end up in the ocean.

Why is it a good sign to have osprey around?

• Ospreys are a sign of a healthy habitat and ecosystem.

What is often found in an osprey’s nest that end up injuring these bird or their young?

• Plastics.

 

PROGRESS ON TRASH TRIVIA ASSETS

Richard’s drawing in the progress of being turned into an animated, enchanted forest. All the other drawings will also be animated and used in the game.

After allocating tasks to the students in Week 8, Raquel and I were excited to see what the students have come up with. A few of the kids were tasked with coming up with a slogan, a few with ideas for a logo and others were tasked with doing more drawings. Everyone was told to come up with a question that we can use in the trivia.

To our delight, when we got there, everyone on our team was drawing! Some were drawing trees, some a scene from the ocean. Below are some of the drawings.

ASSETS

The tree with moustache:

The enchanting forest:

An imaginative anime character and a cat:

The Trash Trivia showtree, logo and slogan: “Just Do It”

The gentlefish host:

An ornate tree out of a folk story

Iba’s poetic slogan…

Copy of the contract we made for the following weeks:

Everyone was tasked with a job to do on Earth Day and also for homework. Jeet and Veer were both assigned the researcher’s role.

 

USER TEST

We had the incredible opportunity to play one round of our game using the PowerPoint we prepared. It took around ~25 minutes and provided us with lots of good insight into what we should work on for the next iteration.

The kids suggested the following:

• make some questions more generic and easier so that people don’t get completely stuck on one question
• allocate different points to questions depending on level of difficulty
• have a cheat sheet for the PowerPoint operator so they know where the right answers are

Prototype 1 screenshots:

Kamali’s trash drawing was used to create a scene of a forest with polluted river. The tree background is an image I found elsewhere and used for testing/ideation purposes. The resulting image was used as the main background of the game until more drawings of trees/forests were done by the students.

Richard’s logo drawing was used as a test Trash Trivia logo. The logo was animated to have flashing effect where the letters alternate from cyan to white.

A tree picture from the internet, decorated with Kamali’s trash drawings was used as the tree of trash that appear behind every question.

The cross pattern from Kamali’s trash bin drawing was used as a background for the questions. Pressing on Show Question displays a new question.

Pressing on Show Answers displays the answers hidden behind black boxes. Clicking on each box reveals the answers behind.

 

SOUND EFFECTS

The entire team participated in series of recordings for sound effect for Trash Trivia. The result of this session will be posted in the next post.

Raquel and I had a rather challenging Owl/Zoom discussion with the Trash Trivia team from Parsons. We could not hear them well and neither could they hear us well. After switching rooms and earphones a few times, we even tried typing, with Jeet typing us back from LCCS. This worked better sometimes and at other times, talking was better. After some intervention from LCCS side, the communication became a little bit better.

PROGRESS

We showed our 3 moodboards to the students and got them to vote on their favourite. Given how the team is made up of 6 boys and 1 girl, they all seemed to prefer the Game Show style better, but this could also be what they are most familiar with when it comes with Family Feud.

But towards the end of the discussion, the boys somehow ended up getting quite obsessed with the idea of an underwater, mysterious/dark setting and so we asked them to do more drawings for us to use as production assets.

To keep things going and to involve everyone in the making process, we allocated tasks to each student and asked them to come prepared next week with things to show and discuss with us. Hopefully they will have done their homework.

We also sent them this email after the Owl/Zoom conversation:

 

Going with our forest idea since everyone else is doing underwater/water related projects; Raquel and I decided it would be good to tailor the enchanter forest idea to the boys’ taste by perhaps changing it to a future forest/futuristic forest idea. By incorporating the neon lights and fog machine the kids liked during the Owl/Zoom discussion, we devised a new moodboard and prepared the first prototype for testing our game.

 

BELOW: Inspiration images

 

OUR REVISED MOODBOARD (incorporating assets done by LCCS students): ——> more process work will be added soon

Logo as of now (will be updated):

 

Raquel and I have been very productive over the break, making lots of notes and doing research on the different elements of Trash Trivia. We prepared the below package for the LCCS kids to go through and collect assets from them.

After missing what could have turned into a super productive making day because of the snow day, we headed to LCCS for our week 6 session with the students fully prepared with lots of ideation exercises.

The LCCS and Parsons students got paired/mixed with each other to complete a series of mini ideation exercises involving drawings, discussions and narrative development. One thing I realised that really stayed with me from this session is how mature the LCCS kids actually are! Although we all knew this from the beginning that they are grade 6, 7, 8 students, I feel like I have been treating them to much like little kids, in effect missing out on an opportunity to have more serious conversations with them about the environment.

Nevertheless, our idea sharing/synthesizing/vote session went quite well in my opinion. All of the students I spoke to were excited about their ideas when explaining their stories/characters to me and they all really listened when I told them about my character. As we all spoke to at least 4-5 other students, we ended up with lots of ideas: the originals and the combined hybrids. This meant many of the new (and old) ideas had to be discarded or somehow synthesized into the new/selected ones. One girl on my team came up with a beautiful story about a seal-princess and suggested we incorporate shadow puppet effect in the project that she knows how to do, in effect creating a performance. This was the last idea I worked on during the ideation session so we put the idea down as our proposal for others to vote on. It didn’t receive many votes, mostly because I think there were other projects already going viral amongst the older boys and kids catch onto these things very quickly ahihi.

Below: My character turtle boy who goes on a quest to collect all the resources needed to build a device that can tell the difference between jellyfish and plastic bag.

Just before we started the ideation session:

 

I joined the Trash Trivia team which I thought was a team with the most straightforward idea. The challenge for us going forward would be to rebrand the trivia/jeopardy/family feud styles that were proposed to fit the earth day theme while at the same time keeping the questions both fun and informative/educational. Finding this balance I think would be the hardest especially since trivias and game show styles are already very popular among the general population and introducing completely new elements may throw things off too much. At the same time, the popularity of these shows also make the Trash Trivia idea already very attractive to the public, as can be easily seen from the way the idea went viral in seconds during our ideation session.

I’m looking forward to developing Trash Trivia further!