Wellington is under attack! The native bush surrounding Wellington is currently under attack from three strangling weeds that are threatening to take over all of our green spaces and city areas. The names of these weeds are Old Man’s Beard, Banana Passionfruit, and Climbing Asparagus. These weeds are choking and smothering all of Wellingtons native trees and plants. Our goal is to create long-lasting awareness of these weeds so that people are able to identify and recognise the difference between which plants are good, and which ones are considered dangerous to our native bush.
How can design create public awareness of the Strangler threat?
So what do Wellingtonians know?
We decided the best approach to creating awareness in Wellington about the strangler threat would be to go out and research how informed the Wellington public is, and what level of interest they hold about Wellington’s bush and green areas.
Do people care about the Wellington bush and green spaces? • Yes - many found them to be useful and relaxing mental escapes from the urban city evnironment and thought they were important to the local wildlife. • Many felt pride for New Zealand’s clean image, saying the vegetation added to the culture of the city, as most grew up in an area surrounded by bush.
Do Wellingtonians know of the strangler threat? • Many people have heard of Old Man’s Beard but most do not know of Banana Passionfruit or Climbing Asparagus. • There is a lack of knowledge of what they look like or how they are a threat. • A few pointed out their names were decieving, or didn’t think anything would need to be done about the issue.
How do you think we could create an awareness of the Strangler issue? • When asked if media such as posters or brochures could help raise awareness, many said they don’t have the time nor motivation to read brochures and websites as it isn’t so easily seen. • Instead, an overwelming amount of people surveyed suggested where solutions that involved the community and working together with other people who also care about the issue. People also suggested social media tactics would be a great way to catch attention.
Our Audience We aim to use design to create long standing awareness for a potential campaign in the future. We need a solution that will stay in the minds of the general public for a long amount of time. We found that people’s desire to care about nature may be strongly linked to where and how they grew up, and what they learnt about it from a young age. Younger audiences are more impressionable and are more likely to remember what they’ve learnt at the later age. We aim to create an informative yet fun learning experience for the youth of today, so that it may impact on their knowledge and will be able to be widely used amongst the public of Wellington City.
How might we raise awareness of Strangler plants in the general public using the youth of today?
How can we teach children? We asked some primary school teachers and teacher aides what their thoughts on raising awareness for our issue through childrens learning were.
What is your opinion on creating a teaching tool for primary age children to educate them about the invasive plants? “Plants are a common topic for us to look at in class, it’s usually about native flora and fauna, but this could be a good topic digging deeper into that. Creating something fun and interactive that kids will enjoy doing would be the best route for you to take.”
How do you think we could get children to want to interact with the information we are trying to convey to them? “Something like a computer game would be great, workbooks for kids in school probably wouldn’t be as popular, as to them a workbook just seems like work. However something like a computer game or an i-pad game would be great! Kids are drawn to technology these days, and even if it appears like work to them, doing it on a computer isn’t so much work, but a game.”
We aim to look at how designing an interactive game could be used in primary school’s to help teach kids about invasive plants and what they’re doing to New Zealand’s native bush.
Our Solution We found the biggest issue surrounding the awareness of the strangler threat was the identification of the plants. So we concluded that creating personas of the plants would be a good way to help the recognition of them in real life. We’ve designed characters for several strangler plants to make them more memorable and iconic, and to help connotate villified traits with strangler plants. To aid the recognition between good and bad, we’ve also designed cute and appealing personas for Wellington’s native plants, to encourage people to plant a native alternative.
Our aim is help people recognize the native plants from the invasive plants through characters.
Garden Gladiators card Game One formation these characters could be used in is a childrens card game we’ve called “Garden Gladiators” The goal of the game is for players to: protect their garden filled with ‘native’ plant cards and defend it from ‘invader’cards. What the game concept teaches: • It allows kids to interact with the characters on a regular basis. • The back of the cards allow children to learn the traits of the plants so that they are easily recognisable in real life. • Gives the children a fun and easy way to learn with each other and with their families and friends. These cards allow children to learn through play, and have fun while doing so. The characters are interesting and eye-catching, and if developed further, could be a great way to continue teaching children about different plants and their characteristics.
A Versatile Solution While we’ve focused on a card game for now, these characters could be used in many different forms, from posters or toys to mobile or tablet app games for children. The next stage in engaging children with the information about the stranglers would be to create a further level of interactivity, which could be done through the animation of these characters in a mobile app game. By having toys or an app able to be downloaded onto their own devices, children are able to take these characters around with them and play in a digital medium. As our research shows, the future of childrens learning needs to look towards a more technological side of interactive gaming.
Distribution Schools • The cards and toys would be distrubuted to local schools for children to collect and play with. • Schools often teach children about the enviroment, and would may also find these characters and cards useful for activities to help children learn about the eviroment, gardening and new zealands na tive plants.
Supermarkets • Another method of distrubuting these card packs would be in super markets. the cards would be given out to shoppers after they spent a certain amount of money, similar to ‘Star wars’ cards and ‘New World’s little garden’. • Supermarkets reach a vast amount of people and will get the plants and their characters out into the public. Cards are a fun collectors item so both children and adults would enjoy collecting all the characters.
These strategies can be applied not only in the Wellington region, but can also be replicated throughout New Zealand to help raise awareness about invasive plants throughout the whole country.
Meet the team
Reuben Agnew I was responsible for the secondary research about the strangler threat. I also did the 3D Modelling for the Strangler toy models.
Josh Walker I was responsible for designing and illusratating the character designs, card layouts, dossier and presentation. I also conducted primary research on Wellingtonian’s knowledge on the strangler issue and wrote up the dossier with Zoe.
Zoe Mitchell I conducted primary research on Wellingtonian’s knowledge on the strangler issue. I also interviewed primary school teachers and teacher aides about childrens interactive learning.I worked alongside Josh to write up and spellcheck the dossier.
Lucy O’Connell I was responsible for the secondary research about children’s learning and interactive media. I also did the 3D Modelling for the Strangler toy models.
Joe McCarthy I was appointed Communications person in the group to keep in contact with the council and relay infromation to the team. I also conducted primary research on Wellingtonians, distribution and budget plans, while also assisting Josh with any visual style help.
Thankyou for Reading!