Carrie Beach
Design Thinking, with People at the Center
Recovery after a Natural Disaster
The Disaster Recovery Project requires students to help a community recover in an area that has been impacted by a natural disaster.
The Problem
A community has been destroyed by a natural disaster and needs to rebuild using eco-friendly and sustainable, disaster safe practices as well as preparing for future disasters.
The Goal
Students will create model tiny homes that meet the needs of residents in the area where the disaster occured. They will also create educational materials and a disaster awareness plan that can be used before, during, and after future natural disasters.
Design Process
Empathy
Research residents of affected area and anything that we need to know in order to solve the problem
Prototype
Build tiny home and create materials for community awareness products
Design
Create blueprints for homes and scripts for community awareness program
Ideate
Plan tiny home and community awareness campaing
Define
We will help a community recover by building model tiny home and a community awareness plan.
Empathy
During the empathy portion of the assignment, students research the residents of three areas that have been affected by a natural disaster. They watch videos that include interviews with experts and survivors, imagery of before and after the disaster, and special information about the area or disaster including storm surge in hurricanes and cleaning up toxic hazardous materials after a forest fire.
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After the user research is complete, the class discuss other things that we will need to understand in order to complete the project. For this project, students determined we would need to understand
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​Natural Disasters (Where they occur, affects/type of damage caused, how to prepare and protect people and property)
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Renewable energy
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Eco-friendly Construction including materials and practices
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​Local natural disaster building code
Define
Goal: Help a community recover from a natural disaster by completing the following:
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Design and build an eco-friendly that uses renewable energy suitable for the region where the town it is located. The home must be built from sustainable materials and meet or exceed local natural disaster building codes.
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Develop a community awareness plan for natural disaster preparedness and safety which includes plans what must be done before, during and after a disaster.
Ideate
Once the student teams have determined where they will rebuild, they will plan their tiny home and community awareness plan.
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For the tiny home, they need to consider
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basic layout
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Building code/safety features
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Materials
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Renewable energy
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For the community awareness plan, they need to consider what the community will need to know to be prepared before, during, and after a disaster. This could include information about how to evacuate before a disaster, plan for how first responders will be utilized during a disaster, and how the community will reopen after a disaster. During this portion of the project, the students will plan what types of information should be included in the plan. ​
Design
Now the students will design the blueprint for the model of their tiny home. They will include a key to differentiate the different materials that will be used in the construction.
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The design step of the community awareness plan includes writing scripts for public service announcements or videos and determining text needed posters.
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Prototype
Now the building begins. The student teams will build a model of their tiny home using recyclable materials. They will include the key that they created so people will know what materials would be used if they build a real tiny home for the area,
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The teams will also create all materials needed for their community awareness plan. ​
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In addition, the teams will decide how their project will be presented to the class. It could be a poster or oral presentation to the class. But I give them the freedom to develop their own presentation style.
Testing
For this project, students receive feedback from the teacher throughout the design process.
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In addition, there are check points built into the project that require the students to get feedback from other student teams to ensure they are following the rubric and meeting all requirements for the project.