This year in IB Design class, we’ve worked on a variety of activities and projects to better understand design thinking. Many people think of design as the planning and creation of new things (e.g. product design, graphic design, web design), yet every single day, we all engage in “lifestyle design.”
Recently, they used the design thinking model to examine hiking, which is a passion of Mr. O’Donnell, Middle School teacher. Having completed the Appalachian Trail in 2015, Mr. O’Donnell had the material and experience to share this with the students. The students examined hiking gear and offered thoughtful recommendations on what would be essential, based on designing the ultimate efficient gear for such an endeavor. They learned that even if you’re not designing items from scratch, making decisions about what to get and how to use it for a task is a design process in itself.
