Solve a World Problem
Evidence of Work
In this project, we were tasked with solving, or helping a world problem or a problem that we have had a lot of experience with. The problem my group chose to work on was mental health and more specifically, anxiety. When researching our problem, we first researched mental health in general and how it affects people differently. After having strong background knowledge on the subject, we then chose and researched anxiety disorders in specific. We knew there was no way to solve or cure anxiety or mental illness, so we focused on how to improve the conditions of living with it.
For our solution we focused on helping people in our local community at school. We researched the best way to calm down from panic attacks as well as what to do to relieve stress. The solution we developed was a stress relieving/meditation room called the mindful room. We decided on it's placement in the library and figured out the budget necessary for this project.
Content
1. Identify need: Our group looked through different world problems that we had come up with and picked the one that interested us most as a whole. The three of us mutually decided on finding a way to help some type of mental illness.
2. Research the problem: Each member of our group read and took notes on three articles related to mental illnesses. At the beginning, the research we did was about background information and different causes and reactions of mental illness. When we finally chose anxiety as our focus, we researched more specifically on the effects and treatments it has.
3. Brainstorm: We started thinking of ways to solve or help lessen the issue of anxiety by writing down every possible solution we came up with. We then looked through them to focus on the solutions that we would be able to kick start or accomplish as freshmen in high school.
4. Select the most promising solution: Our team decided on the solution of a calming/mindful room because we wanted to focus on the community that we were a part of at our school. Building a new room in our school library was also something that we could try to advocate and start doing if we wanted to.
5. construct a prototype: We designed a 3 dimensional drawing of the room to scale including furnishing and it's placement within the library. The room is small with navy blue walls and a comfortable. the room has a window for natural light, but with a curtain in case you want more privacy.
6. Test and evaluate the prototype: We checked our product with different researched information to make sure it had qualities that could actually help people.
7. Communicate the design: To share our design with others we created the slideshow above that had background information on our topic as well as pictures of our solution and information on the costs of completing it.
8. Redesign: We haven't made a new or edited solution, but the feedback given from peers could help us make the room as helpful as possible.
Reflection
This project was something that I really enjoyed working on and learning about because it allowed me to learn about a topic that I was interested in as well as try something new. I had been interested in 3-D modeling and this project gave me a chance to experience working with it. Some things that I think I did well with on this project was communication and presenting. This project helped me talk and contribute my ideas and information with other people. Doing our own research and then compiling it together meant that we shared our knowledge and opinions more comfortably. I think another thing I, and my team did well on this project was the presentation aspect of it. All of us were able to speak up and keep our audience engaged while still giving important information.
Two things I want to continue working on for the next project is critical thinking and planning. This project did not incorporate a lot of hard, deep thinking which is something I want to explore more with other projects. I also feel like we did not really know what the project would end up being before hand. Even though it worked out perfectly, I want to work on having a game plan in advance so that everyday isn't something shocking or unknown.