Grade 9D Digital Design Class: October 2015

Criteria A: Inquiry and Analyzing

Identify a design situation. Give a brief introduction.
Outline the needs to solve a problem .
Explain and Justify the need for a solution to a problem for a specified client/target.
Explore identified, real-life design problems set in familiar and unfamiliar contexts.

What problem would I like to find a solution of?

First of all What is littering? Littering is when amount of garbage/rubbish increases because of bad habits of people in the society, who are not willing to throw/dispose of their trash properly and think that it is appropriate to leave their garbage/trash lying round in public places instead of using the rubbish bins or wastepaper baskets provided. I think that littering in India is a big problem and results have been very depressing, because many roads of India are not accessible to many people because of poor quality and the amount of litter that is found on the streets. I would like to stop littering by using different techniques that will be appealing and fun for all ages, this will encourage them to stop littering and understand what cause and effects takes place when they do so. There are different places in the world where littering is a big issue, as many countries try to stop or control littering so that they can keep their city/country clean. Litter can be very dirty. Not only does it look unpleasant but, it may carry germs. Some animals are attracted to areas with lots of litter. They find their food among the trash and can pick up the germs and become carriers for diseases that may make people sick. Litter is bad for the environment. It wastes our natural resources. When cans and bottles are discarded and just thrown on the roadside instead of being recycled, more resources must be used to create cans and bottles from new materials.

What questions will arise and will need to be answered in this littering topic?

Why is littering such a big issue?
How can I contribute in saving the environment?
What can happen if no one recycles, reduces, and reuses?
What impact does littering have on people?
Can littering effect the society in a negative way?
When will littering negatively impact my life?
Does littering have unintended consequences?
What can be done to motivate others to stop littering in their society?
What difference does it make to stop littering?
Can littering be a cause for a natural/environmental disaster?
Who is playing a big role in reducing/stopping littering?
How can others be influenced to reducing/stopping littering?
Is littering a worldwide cause or are some countries more developed than others?

Who gets effected by littering?

I think that wherever littering takes place the whole society is impacted in many negative ways. Littering is not only effected humans but also many animals, and this is one of the causes for many endangered species. There were many incidents that took place that could have been prevented.

These are some preventable incidents:

A fox cub with its head stuck in a wheel hub.
A badger cub with a plastic can holder embedded in its neck.
A cat that lacerated its paw on some broken glass.
A dog with its tongue caught in a discarded can.
A hedgehog with its head wedged in an empty tin.
A seal with fishing net around its neck

What action can you take to help animals?

Protecting animals from harmful rubbish is easy – dispose of your rubbish correctly/responsibly.

Recycle and reuse
Otherwise put /dispose of your rubbish into a bin.
Recycle all that can be recycled and put all other garbage in the proper containers.
If you see someone throwing something on the ground, ask them nicely to put in the trash instead of on the ground.
If you see any litter it is wise to pick it up, although you also need to know what items can be thrown in which type of garbage can. Make sure that piece of rubbish is not hazard to the human body, and may require special equipment to be handled with.

Where does littering take place?

Littering is an act that takes place wherever humans find the need to dispose of garbage incorrectly. Mainly littering takes place at a location where there is not many garbage bins/dustbins, this forces many people to throw their rubbish on the floor. Although there are many parts in India where these facilities are not available therefore forcing many people to litter. Since, India has been showing a great amount of littering throughout the years, there is no significant difference when garbage bins/dustbins are provided.

How will I gather the information?

I will gather my information from reliable sites, since I am looking at littering and ways to stop it, so I can collect data of where littering takes place using data, graphs or charts that I will find from different sites. The chart, graph or table will show the amount of litter found in different parts of each country. this data will help me determine where in the world littering is a big issue. I can use this data to create more awareness in certain areas of the world. I have also found another method to collect my information by myself using these questions:

Do you recycle?
How often do you litter?
Are you aware of littering?

I asked these question to my peers to collect information about littering, to know what everyone thinks of littering and do they take any action for it.

What Research have I come across?

The research that I have come across is that there are different ways and places where littering takes place. Different places have certain laws that are created to stop or even control littering.

I have found out that littering is a big issue and studies have shown litter invites more litter, once people start littering across the side walk other people will be likely to do so as well. Over 51 billion pieces of litter land on U.S. roadways each year. The causes of littering that I have come across so far is that When litter is on sidewalks or along curbs, it may get washed down in to storm drains during a heavy rain. Soon this water leads to the nearest river or ocean. If the water becomes polluted from litter we can no longer use it for drinking. Animals may mistake the items of litter floating in the water as food and could choke on them or they might get stuck in it.

Some questions that I will come a cross in order to collect right type of data:

Do you recycle? - This will show how many people are aware of this issue and are contributing in some to stop or control in their society.
How often do you litter? - This data will show the people who are not aware of littering or do not know the consequences of it, and are continuing to do so.
Are you aware of littering? - This will show the amount of people who are aware of the problem of littering.

Table: The table below shows the results that I have obtained from my peers. This was important because this information lead to many questions and answers that can help me understand my design situation that I have chosen (Littering and ways to stop it). The table shows 3 questions that had been asked to come to a conclusion about littering. The first question I asked was "Do you recycle?", many people had answered "yes I do!" this was a very positive feedback that I received although there were still many who did not... The numbers in the table represent the amount of people who have given that particular answer. There were 15 people who had said yes they do recycle, and there were 9 people who said that they did not. This piece of information was helpful to me because this showed the amount of people who are making an effort to recycle, and are aware and wish to do something to help in stopping or decreasing the risk of littering. The second question that I had asked was "How often do you litter?" sadly the response was quite sad, as there were not many people who said that they never litter, there were only 2 people who said that they always litter, and the largest number of people who littered, only littered once a week. This piece of information is important because this shows people who are willing and not willing to recycle, reuse, or reduce. This information will show how many people are actually putting an effort to either spread awareness or to keep the environment clean, and litter free! The third and last question that I had asked was "Are you aware of littering?" as expected everyone had the knowledge that littering is an issue in the world, and they had some idea about ways to stop littering in the society. They knew things such as: the 3 r's (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle), many people were also aware about the fact of the many problems that littering might have to the society/the environment around them.

Do you recycle?	How often do you litter?	Are you aware of littering?
Yes: 15	Always: 2	Yes: 24
No: 9	Never: 5	No: 0
	Once a week: 17

Why will I research this information?

I would like to research about this specific topic because I would like to bring a change to our environment to make it friendlier for everyone. I would like to create more awareness to this rapidly growing issues. Although, not all countries litter, many countries are Eco-friendly and find ways to protect our environment. I am also interested in finding out about the number of people who litter and are also aware of the fact that they are doing something wrong. I would like to know this information from different places around the world and also from people who I meet everyday (Friends, peers...). To collect certain information I went around my class and asked my peers the 3 questions that I had mentioned above (Do you recycle?, How often do you litter? and Are you aware of littering?). I had converted all the information I received into a form of a graph so that I could clearly see, and point out to others the different aspects of littering. In order for me to collect information about different countries, I will have to do some further research and choose a reliable source to collect information about other countries. I am planning to pick 2 different countries, one that is eco-friendly and rarely litters, and one that litters very often/frequently. I will compare the 2 countries to see what makes them so different, and what actions can be applied to the country that litters, in order for that country to stay clean. Maybe there are only a few small reasons for them to litter, and this problem/issue can be solved with very less resources.

For example if I choose India as one of the countries, then I can research and for now I have found a few things. There are only a few steps that can make India a more eco-friendly and a place where people are aware of the society and environment, and have the knowledge of why littering is a big growing issue. Littering in India had started a long time back, when not many people were aware of the fact that littering is bad and can have unpleasant consequences. Throughout my research I have found out that India litters only because they do not have many resources that can get rid of trash, and because of this many people were provoked to throw their litter/trash/rubbish on the floor, later on this would be cleared by burning the litter on the spot. They burn their trash to make it smaller and easier to dispose of and less space-consuming in landfills Even though this got rid of litter, this is not an environment friendly way of disposing of litter. This is not an eco-friendly way to dispose of the trash/rubbish because when the trash is burnt it releases carbon dioxide which is a major pollutant. In addition to that particulate (tiny solid particles e.g. dust, metal) this can go deep inside the lungs. PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) such pollution can cause lung, neurological disease, heart attack and cancer, in addition to causing global warming.

Global Warming is a big issue as well Scientists have warned that the world's climate has changed a lot, and has affected many living and non-living things. Many places that were warmer are now getting colder, and many colder regions are getting much more colder or even warmer (know as Global Warming). Greenhouse: In some countries, people build a small glass house to plant crops in it. It is built to keep the sun's heat from escaping from the glasshouses. In a way, the earth is like a glasshouse. The earth has some very important gasses in the atmosphere that keeps us warm. Some of these gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. When the sun heats the earth, these gases keep the heat on the earth's surface. Without these gases, heat would escape back into space and Earth’s average temperature would be about 60°F colder. The greenhouse effect is important. Without the greenhouse effect, the earth would not be warm enough for humans to live. But if the greenhouse effect becomes stronger, it could make the earth warmer than usual. Even a little extra warming of the earth may cause problems for humans, plants and animals.

Strengths: Creating awareness for littering, is a strength because the more the awareness, it will be more likely to stop this problem which will help keep our community clean. In scratch programming the strengths I will obtain or already have related to littering is that I am aware of new functions on scratch programming that can help me to create a scratch design relevant to my problem "Littering". This will be good because I will be able to portray a piece of work that reflects my problem that I have chosen, this will show the knowledge I have gained through research and data collecting analysis.

Weaknesses: The weakness of creating awareness towards littering is that some people will not think of this problem as a big issue, and will ignore this and continue to litter. In scratch programming the weakness/problems that I will face when creating my design situation will be the different options to create a design situation suitable to my problem (Littering and ways to stop it). I might not be familiar with new functions that allow me to create a design situation exactly as I have planned, as I am not fully aware of all the functions in scratch programming.

Opportunities: when I chose to work on littering as my problem, I was interested in knowing how many people litter, and who are trying to stop it, this gave me an opportunity to ask people and search online about the numbers (who litters and who does not) in different parts of the world. Even though I am not fully aware of all the different functions available on scratch programming, I will have many opportunities to explore them myself.

Threats: A threat that I might face when using scratch programming to create a good design might be that my outcome might not be exactly what I was looking for, as there are functions that I have not been successfully in using before. Such as the option to add a drawing to the scratch programming you are working on. I am not capable to draw a adequate piece of work, as I have not shown much interest in drawing before and still do not look forward to it.

References:

http://www.buildingoperations.ubc.ca/faqs/where-does-littering-occur/
http://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/litter
http://education.seattlepi.com/littering-affect-environment-6802.html

Tuesday 6th October 2015

Reflection

What was your inspiration?

My inspiration to choose a dog as my scratch character came from my love for dogs. I really love all kinds of animals, and I love dogs the most. So, in the scratch programming that I have created the dog represents my likes. The background was also inspired by my likes, I love cold weather (Winter) the background of my scratch program there is a winter background. The gingerbread house represents my childhood likes and inspirations, because as a child I loved gingerbread houses.

How did you do that?

I created my backgrounds and changed my scratch programming profile by using some different elements on scratch programming, that I was unfamiliar to, so that I can challenge my self to try something new/different. The elements that I used to make my background was adding any background from the ones available in the scratch program. The elements that I used to change my cat into a dog was, using functions available under the function "Sprites".

What did you get stuck on? How did you get unstuck?

I got stuck on drawing more features on my dog character, I wanted to draw a hat, although I was unable to do so because I am not relatively good at drawing. This made it harder for me to attempt to do anything on my dog. I solved this problem by adding different features such as a collar, and I added more functions to the movement so that my dog will have many things to do. I have chosen many different things such as: dog sounds, point in directions, wait 1 second, move 10 steps, ask "What's your name" then wait for a few seconds, character touching colour, if on edge bounce, create a clone for the dog, a few of these actions work when the space bar is pressed and the other half work when the mouse clicks the picture of the dog.

What are you most proud of? Why?

I am most proud of the functions for movement that I have created and assigned to my dog character, because I went out of my comfort zone and I was a risk taker as an IB learner, I tried out new functions that were difficult.

What might you want to do next?

Next time I would like to do more than just one character and assign each character making it a bit more difficult and a higher level task, and challenging for me. Although, I would still like to attempt to do this so that I can explore and try out even more functions and features available on scratch programming.