Our project is to foster a connection between people and their local ecology, treating it as an integral extension of their community and identity. We aim to achieve this by delivering the right context that enables individuals to relate to their local environment, empowering them to take active steps to protect and care for it.
We seek to instill in individuals the understanding that their local ecology is not just a distant entity but an essential part of who they are. By forging this connection, we aim to nurture a profound sense of belonging.
Through carefully curated experiences and information, we hope to provide individuals with the context they need to relate to their local ecology. This relatability serves as a bridge to understanding and caring for the environment.
Our ultimate goal is to encourage and empower individuals to become proactive stewards of their local ecology. We believe that when people feel connected and responsible for their environment, they are more likely to take action to protect and care for it.
Problem
Our connections with our local ecologies often lack clarity and can become distant, as they are intertwined with our broader, ambiguous perception of nature.
"We love what we particularly know"
Challenging the notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We can have difficulty relating to our local non-human life because we think about it in large conceptual terms like "nature".
Theory of Change: If we can provide the means for people to see their local ecology as a part oof who they are by delivering the right context to relate to, then people will be encouraged and empowered to protect it, and care for it.
To test the notion of co-creating specific language, a quick initial prototype was in the form of a facebook post requesting parents ask their kids to respond to 5 nature-related prompts:
1. What do you call the faint stickiness left on your hands after having picked up a frog?
2. What do you call the clouds that come out of your nose when it’s cold?
3. What is the name of the brief downfall that results from shaking a small tree on a snowy day?
4. What do you call the way we walk through piles of fallen leaves in the autumn?
5. What is it called when snails go wandering around after the rain?
To build on the early prototype, bring more prompts to more people. How to enable people to think of and write their own prompts? Is there a format of the prompt that best helps people think of names for things? What is the best way to distribute prompts and collect responses? How can this be formatted so that it can be picked up and used to create pieces of specific local or contextual nature-related language wherever they are? Is it a workbook? With existing prompts and spaces for your own? And space and guides to write stories and poems based on the words created and collected.
Can we incorporate place (bringing the local back in) by having people mapping their area and identifying where the terms they have created happen on the map? How do we start them off, and then guide them? Do we provide some sort of base map for them to start with?
Below is an example of a poem made with responses to the early prototype:
Glop still on my hands,
down the garden path I did floomp.
On my way past the tree, at the bottom,
I made sugarfall.
Witness! my dragon breath!
And look again for my coming,
this night, at the sign of the summoning.
We believe in making life-long love connections through great design.
Subscribe to our monthly email newsletter to stay up-to-date with Project Love.
