If you haven’t read Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth, and you work in any creative or idea driven field, I highly suggest you read it NOW.  The Manifesto really helps steer me in a constructive direction when I need to refocus.  I’ve been trying to get several projects organized right now, and the blog seemed like a really great place to organize some of my thoughts.    With that in mind, today let’s focus on Manifesto Point #9:

“BEGIN ANYWHERE – John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis.  His advice:  begin anywhere”.

This notion is such a relief, and when starting a project, knowing that you can begin anywhere, and truck along towards progress is really the way to go.  This is the thinking behind how we developed our new grade 6 air program.  At the initial concept development stage for this program, I was super stuck.  These poorly drawn diagrams illustrate what direction this program was going in, but it didn’t feel right for several reasons.  So I discussed with various team members. 

Figure 1. Initial brainstorming...

Figure 2. More brainstorming and poorly drawn diagrams.

Everything brainstormed sounded like a) something a teacher could do in their classroom just as well as we could b) something that could lead to ‘fake science’ notions c) just tired and less relevant than the ideal final outcome.  My lab mate Katherine noticed my mental block and after chatting it out we discovered that a) I was stuck on learning outcomes instead of ‘cool things we can do with air’ and b) we needed to have a mini rig with the rest of the team. 
The functional definition of a rig may be floating around somewhere else on this blog, but just as a refresher:  RIG – Rapid Idea Generation.  For our purposes, we just got everyone in the lab, and they had one task that they had to do: prove to me that air exists.  They could use any of the bins in the lab, any material that was necessary to prove to me that air exists.  I told them I didn’t believe air existed because I can’t see it.  They found SEVERAL VERY AMAZING ways to prove to me that air exists. 

Figure 3. Alan said he could prove to me that air exists if I got into this plastic bag. I ignored common sense and jumped in...

Figure 4. Stacey helped arrange the plastic bag, while Alan got the vaccuum ready.

Figure 5. Alan gets his experiment on the go. All you need is one volunteer (me), a vacuum, and a plastic bag and you can really feel the change in air pressure as you are vaccuum sealed into a plastic bag.

Figure 6. This experiment was not as affective with two people in the plastic bag...but we were trying to see how many people could potentially be included in this experience.

Figure 8. Pat did not expect the sudden change in air pressure/intense quishing sensation. Thanks for trying it out Pat!

Figure 9. Look carefully at this photo! Alex made himself an 'air detector'. It was so great! Essentially a glorified headband with a propeller (red thing over his head) so you can SEE when air is interacting with it! Look at him go!

Figure 10. Stacey, Alan, myself and half of Alex's head watching the other developer's present their proof that air exists.

Figure 11. This photo does not need a caption.

From here we were able to hone in on some things that felt right, and were more in line with the direction I wanted to take the air program.  I really liked the idea of ‘air detectors’ as a concept.  Although the air detector hat Alex created was not the most tangible idea, I loved the idea of having students prove to the facilitator that air exists by doing their own experiments; having them use what they already know about air to prove its existence.  This created a concept to move this program forward, and the rest of the developers helped me select bins of materials I could use when testing.  They selected tons of great materials including aluminum foil, tissue paper, packaging peanuts, cellophane, coloured gels, Mylar, tinsel, Tygon tubing, other tubing, turkey basters, propellers, plastic straws, plastic bags, bubble wrap, Nalgene containers, balloon pumps, air pumps, other pumpy devices, gliders, turbines, dryer tubing.  It was awesome to realize that that as a group of developers, we moved this program from a good future program, to what may be a great future program. 

Figure 12. A much more exciting batch of programming ideas. Thanks everybody!

I know the above Post-It Notes scan is pretty blurry, which is intentional, to leave you in suspsense!  I’ll follow up on how this program pilot went shortly; in the meantime I will leave you with Manifesto Point#3

 “Process is more important than outcome – when the outcome drives the process we will only ever go where we’ve already been.  If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.”

-Claudia

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Here are a few amazing things that happened on our last day at Our Lady of Assumption School:
1. Parents came to check out what their kids had created. This is Darren’s dad, who is playing the game his son created in the afterschool club, and exclaiming, “Oh man, this game is hard! It’s better than the ones I played as a kid!”

2. Kids taught other kids what they did, how they did it, and showed pride in what they created.

3. Student facilitators talking to lots of visitors! Students showed off their new tech skills and projects to parents, CSSD staff members, U of C professors, and the media!

Thanks again OLA! This was a great adventure, and we now have some great programs to run in the NSC.

Carly

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