Final Blog: CALS501
* This blog post follows the story spine, as detailed by Rotman (2017), introduced in CALS 502.
Once upon a time…I embarked on a Design Thinking Challenge with three amazing students in the Master of Arts in Climate Action Leadership program at Royal Roads University. Together we formed a team, aptly named the Troublemakers, tasked with designing and developing a conceptual prototype of an educational program that would empower people to become more actively engaged in creating and implementing climate action strategies.
From the beginning, we knew we wanted to do something to support people by providing a space for them to learn from each other and from experts, and then take that learning back into their areas of work and life. Our scope was national, all-encompassing, and included a theory of change that worked outside the framework of government or formal institutions, from the bottom up.
As we moved through the program…we explored the details of climate science, immersed ourselves in systems thinking and human-centred design, learned about communication strategies and best practices, considered our positionality and inherent biases, listened and learned from Indigenous scholars about Indigenous worldview and the concept of Ethical Space, and then brought all of our deep learning back to the design challenge to iterate and develop our prototype (Bridge, 2021).
At times, we were awash with so much new information and so many different perspectives, all of us brimming with ideas to address the challenge, it felt a bit like playing whac-a-mole as we tried to solve and incorporate new things popping up at every turn. We all had somewhat different speeds, preferences, ideas, and approaches, so navigating our individual differences and returning to common ground as a group was critical to moving through the design process. We wanted to ensure our work stayed grounded in the values and principles we agreed upon, while providing the space to think big, explore ideas, and get creative with our prototype. This process could be visualized a bit like an upward spiral, building on each layer as we moved up toward our final conceptual prototype. It was sometimes a challenge to ride that tension between narrowing in and landing on something to build upon, and then going wide again to explore the possibility space, innovate and incorporate new ideas.
But one day…our multitude of ideas and values crystalized around the concept of designing and developing a community of practice that would focus on nature-based climate solutions, while centering on decolonization and an Indigenous worldview. What that meant to us, was that our prototype would be focused on relationships between people, their relationship with nature, embracing the practice of reciprocity with nature (Kimmerer, 2014). Helping people reconnect with the land would be a central pillar of our program, which would also support capacity-building for Indigenous-led projects, training products, etc.
Because of this, we were able to focus on some of the more tangible elements of our prototype, specifically, the development of a website that would house future resources, like training and guidance materials, provide virtual connection space, link to resources and programs that already exist. We wanted to have a broad, national, virtual space that would connect people from other places, while project work would be local, community-led and mostly small scale. We understood that we didn’t have to change the world with projects, we could change the world by changing minds, by connecting people to community, by helping people get their hands in the dirt, and find solutions to climate change within the wisdom of nature herself.
But we could only take it so far. We had to slow down and realize that in order to walk our talk, we would have to take this idea out into the world for more testing and gathering of potential members to help with refining the framework. We would need to spend much more time listening and iterating based on what other founding members of this community might want to see.
Finally…we were able to articulate both the tangible and the more nebulous aspects of our prototype in a way that satisfied all the Troublemakers involved in its design and development. On June 8th, 2020, the team presented our idea and the story of our process to our cohort, answered questions and gathered feedback. We noticed how other team’s prototypes would fit well as either resources or as partner projects within the container of our community of practice.
In the end, we were satisfied with all the deep work we did and created a concept that can be further iterated upon, revised, improved and implemented in the future.
References
Rotman, S. (2017). “Once upon a time…” Eliciting energy and behaviour change stories using a fairy tale story spine. Energy Research & Social Science, 31, 303-310. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2017.06.033
Bridge, G. (2021). Evolving towards ethical space: the authority of Earth knowledge in Western and Indigenous societies. CALS500 Lecture, Royal Roads, August 12, 2021.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2014). “Returning the Gift.” Center for Humans and Nature. https://www.humansandnature.org/returning-the-gift-article-177.php