Hi, My name is Lea and I’m a Communication design student at Kolding Design School. Since I was a child the world has changed tremendously, and luckily so have I. I’ve been equipped with a curious and creative mind that allows me to adapt and see possibilities. It fascinates me how small changes can change peoples behaviour a lot, how there are so many different ways to communicate, and so many different ways to find out which one to use.
Being creative is part of being me. Being creative is not just about creating things and being good at drawing or being able to sew a sushi costume for your child the evening before halloween. To me it is about seeing possibilities, getting great ideas and solving problems.
In the spring of 2020 I did a project that evolved around the question:
“How might we, with nature as source of inspiration, promote creative thinking through educational material?”
The reason for wanting to promote creative thinking in schools started from a walk in the forest. I were on a mission to get some inspiration for my project, and I found that being in nature inspired me to many different projects and made me think in a more creative way. In my research of the topic I found that kids are often thinking divergently, which has a parallel to thinking creatively, but when they go to school they start thinking more convergent, and are rewarded for giving a correct answer.
I interviewed a group of teachers and a professor of educational psychology to get more knowledge and insights about the topic. The insights I got from them was that there wasn’t a lot of teaching in creativity yet, but that they were curious about it and open to something they could easily get to when they got time in their schedules. The professor confirmed the need for creative thinking and gave me some valuable knowledge towards activities which trains the brain to think creatively. After more methods and idea generating I put together a prototype and went to a school to get it testet. The teacher startet out without my presence, to get a more natural test of the product, a few days later I observed the prototype in action.
The product, a card game with four stacks of four different categories; words, problem solving, visual and social. And two stacks of inspiration cards, one with objects and one with things from nature. A card is drawn from one of the category cards and a task or problem needs to be solved.
For example: A green card from the category “words” has been drawn, and the task is: “You are writing a book about _____ and_____. Come up with a title for your book.” The blank spots in the sentence is to be filled with objects drawn from the inspiration cards.
When playing this game it is very important to remember not to judge oneself or others, there is no wrong answers, and the more answers the better. To be creative and to be able to talk somewhat freely, its important that you feel comfortable and not threatened by people mocking your ideas.
The students at the school loved it, it was a great break for them. They expressed to me the joy of being allowed to think freely and somewhat childishly. The teachers too were impressed, and liked the fact that the game could be adjusted to the amount of time they had to spare or fill out, and the many different ways to use the cards could even be used in addition to topics or projects they might be working with.
I think it is very important that we promote and reward children for thinking out of the box, the world is rapidly changing and having a creative mind will help you come up whit solutions to adapt to different conditions and problems. This will not only help each individual in a life of facing different and sometimes difficult obstacles but it will also help our society and world overcoming problems and challenges.
On a personal level, this project gave me a road to follow and made me realise how important being creative has been to me, and how I have taken it for granted.
One of the things I love about design is the mix between not having a right or wrong, and the feeling of satisfaction when things just fall into place, like a perfectly fitting puzzle piece.
At the design school I’ve been learning about a variety of tools, techniques and media. Here is a selection of some of the things I have made, click on the button below to get more background info.
