Tag: climate change

Convergence of Science and Art to Support Climate Resilience in Central American Smallholder Communities

This innovative application assists farmers in planning their planting and harvesting activities based on rainfall forecasts

Qiuwen Li
Assistant Professor
Santa Clara University

Sara Wheeler
Undergraduate Student
Santa Clara University

Contributors: Iris Stewart-Frey, Ed Maurer, Allan Báez Morales, Gautam Chitnis, Alex Avila, Tanmay Singla, Turner Uyeda, Briana Guingona

Farming communities in vulnerable regions of Northern Nicaragua heavily rely on rain-fed agriculture amidst climate variability. Unfortunately, smallholder farmers often lack timely climate forecasts to inform their decisions. To address this challenge, a collaborative team from Santa Clara University (SCU) has partnered with a Nicaraguan NGO to develop the NicaAgua app. This innovative application assists farmers in planning their planting and harvesting activities based on rainfall forecasts.

This app innovatively simplifies presenting probabilistic rainfall forecasts. Our project leverages resources and advocates integrating data visualization with shapes, symbols, and attributes, following human-centric principles for accessible climate data.

Forecasts’ use relies on perceived skill (Babcock, 2016). The main challenge is converting rain forecasts across language and geography, aligning with local knowledge and ensuring accessibility. We employed participatory methods, surveys, focus groups, and workshops. In design, Gestalt principles make our visuals digestible, aiding in identifying relevant metrics for local climate efforts.

Through visual aids and expertise, this initiative empowers Nicaraguan farmers. We’ll share insights in the session, covering student-centered research, participatory methods, and app design.

References

Babcock, Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, Mitchell J. Small and Iris Grossmann, Stakeholder perceptions of water systems and hydro-climate information in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, Earth Perspectives (2016) 3:3, DOI 10.1186/s40322-016-0035-x

This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 10.2: Annual CAA Conference 2024 (Hybrid) on Thursday, February 15, 2024.

Climate Designers EDU: Climify Design Projects

How educators bring climate-related projects and parameters into the classrooms

Sat, January 9, 2021
12:30pm – 2:00pm EST
Zoom Meeting

College students today are more aware of our climate crisis than previous generations. Many are actively looking for ways to use their creative talents to take much needed climate action in the classroom and out.

During this event, design educators are invited to join members of the Climate Designers EDU team as they share their own work and answer questions about how educators can bring climate-related projects and parameters into their classrooms.

The Climate Designers EDU team will provide an overview of the CD EDU initiative, share student work, demo their v1 climate project submission process, and answer any questions educators might have about the initiative or how to “climify” design projects. 

10 Case Studies in Eco-Activist Design

Kelly Salchow MacArthur
Associate Professor
Michigan State University

Activism through design is especially timely, as the effects of climate change are becoming alarmingly obvious. Victor Papanek wrote in The Green Imperative, “Design must be the bridge between human needs, culture and ecology.”1 Armed with the powerful tools of visual communication, great responsibility rests on the shoulders of designers when conceptualizing and producing work—and presents an exciting opportunity to share one’s beliefs, and incite change within a broad community.

As a design educator and practitioner, I pursue creative research that aspires to catalyze empathy and positive action towards addressing climate change. Case studies will demonstrate various communication design strategies—humanistic appeals to reconnect with nature, statistics meant to instigate response, calls to action, aesthetic presentation of biophilia, concrete poetry, and community mapping for an ecological organization.


While such work has proven to be personally, conscientiously, and professionally enriching, the main ambition has been to relate to society in unexpected ways and affect change. As Eric Benson and Yvette Perullo write in Design to Renourish, “Designers as citizens have an obligation to be respectful to all fellow human beings and to the planet we share.”2 Through this body of work, I hope to contribute to (and sway) the ongoing dialog of environmental urgency that is often met with inaction.


  1. Papanek, Victor. The Green Imperative. New York, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995. pg. 29.
  2. Benson, E. & Perullo, Y. Design to Renourish. Boca Raton, Florida: Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. pg. 115.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 5.2: CAA 2019 Conference New York on Thursday, February 14, 2019.

State of Flux

Natacha Poggio
Assistant Professor
University of Houston Downtown

The climate change debate is divided into two major sides. One argues that the current global warming is caused by human factors while the other side insists it is occurring because of natural forces. Scientists around the world have conducted research that shows human activities contribute the most to today’s climate change. Human activities like the burning of fossil fuels, agriculture and changes in land-use patterns contribute to tip the Earth’s energy balance by trapping more heat, leading to global warming. The increased temperature fluctuations on Earth lead to more frequent extreme weather events (hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires) which are another indication that climate change is, in fact, a reality.


“State of Flux” is a poster design series on climate change issues, showcasing our planet in a state of flux. My presentation will address how students of different illustration skill levels learn about systems-thinking, design principles and the importance of raising awareness of natural and human interventions that led to climate change.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 5.2: CAA 2019 Conference New York on Thursday, February 14, 2019.