Phase 4: How do we imagine futures?

Activities

Acknowledging Country

• Today’s lesson is focused on future places, needs, and resources, but the Country you are on has been shaped by First Nations peoples since time immemorial, and by non-Indigenous peoples for the past 250+ years. What are some of the ways in which humans have shaped the lands you live on? What differences in First Nations and non-Indigenous values, needs, and resources have affected the ways in which we have shaped the land?

Warming-up

• Check out the warm-ups for suitable activities. You might like to engage with a sustainability challenge, such as Wildlife Corridors (Floor is Lava), Infectious Diseases (Wink Murder), or Overfishing (Octopus). Alternatively, you might like to warm-up for artmaking through an activity like Sustainability Sticks or ABC.

Conceptualising sustainability

• Individually, reflect on the following concepts. Close your eyes and embody the concept as your teacher describes it:
  • Systems. Community. Ecosystem. Interdependent. Caring. Healing. Empathy. Laws. Politics. Processes. Businesses.
  • Futures. Imagining. Building capacities. Thinking. Acting. Creating. Empowerment. Equality. Sustainability. Inclusivity. Challenges. Threats. Change. Loss.
  • Design. Innovation. Research. Creativity. Solutions. Impacts. Resources.
  • World views. Beliefs. Social justice. Individual action. Community action. Our role in the world. Agendas. Decisions. Representation.
• What do you notice about your body’s responses to these concepts? Jot these noticings down in your journal.

Brainstorming places, needs, and resources

• Divide into six groups. Each group is assigned a large sheet of paper/whiteboard and one of the following topics. Spend 2-5 minutes brainstorming your topic. Be specific:
  • Human-affected places
  • Places with little to no human impact
  • Human needs
  • Environmental needs
  • Human-created resources
  • Natural resources
• Rotate to the next sheet. Add to the previous group’s brainstorm for another 2-5 minutes. Continue until you have contributed to all the topics.

Exploring connections

• Return to your original sheet. Choose one of the brainstormed words to focus on. Hold this topic and word as your main focus but remain aware of the other topics and how these interconnect. For example, if your topic is ‘Places with little to no human impact’ and the word you have chosen is ‘wetlands’, remain aware of human impacts on this place, human and environmental needs, and the human-created and natural resources that you might draw on.
• Choose one of the concepts embodied at the beginning of this phase (systems, futures, design, world views). Spend approximately 20 minutes exploring how this concept connects to your word using one or more of the following strategies:
  • First Nations knowledges. Reflect on what you learnt while on Country about First Nations knowledges and responsibilities. How do First Nations peoples (in Australia and/or globally) connect with, care for, know about, and/or contribute to your word? Do further research as necessary.
  • Mapping systems. Using stickynotes or scraps of paper, individually brainstorm for one minute everything you can think of that is influenced by or influences your word (for ‘wetlands’, this might include ducks, water, dogs, rubbish…). As a group, examine these influences and organise them into a ‘map’. Draw relationships between the different areas of the map.
  • Preposterous futures. Go around the circle and share an imagining of a probable change humans might make to live more sustainably in relation to your word. Now share a plausible change. Then a possible change. Finally, share a preposterous change. Who can imagine the most preposterous sustainable future?
  • Modelling designs. Using found objects, create an artefact representing a human creation that will improve sustainability in relation to your word. Explain to your teacher or another group how your creation works and what it will achieve.
  • Political resistance. Develop a creative strategy for disrupting, resisting, or challenging society to improve sustainability in relation to your word, such as a strike, political performance, slogan, protest song, petition, or artwork.
  • Political action. Develop a creative strategy for working within existing societal systems to improve sustainability in relation to your word, such as changing or creating new policies, laws, voting systems, political parties, or agendas.
  • Listening to Cassandra. Cassandra was a Trojan priestess fated to have the true gift of prophecy but never be believed. Create an artistic warning (artwork or performance) of what may happen to your word if humans do not learn to live more sustainably. Share your warning with another group or the whole class. Reflect as a class on what you would be sad to lose, and what you will remember or learn from the warning.
  • Empathy timescales. Individually or as a group, imagine you are the chosen word. Spend 5 minutes describing, drawing, and/or embodying what you are like now. Then spend 5 minutes describing/drawing/embodying what you used to be like 25 years ago. Finally, spend 5 minutes describing/drawing/embodying what you will be like 25 years in the future (just before the Anthropocene Museum opens).

NOTE: Students can access a generating ideas guide covering these past three steps HERE.

Sharing and evaluating ideas

• If you have not already done so, share your ideas and creations with the class, and reflect on and evaluate others’ ideas. Ideas and creations do not have to be fully realised to be shared.
• Independently and/or as a class, develop sustainability criteria for assessing ideas. Consider:
  • Awareness of and impact on systems
  • Futures thinking and acting
  • Innovative and creative designs
  • Recognition of world views
• Choose another topic, word, and concept, and repeat the exercise twice more. You should finish this phase with at least three ideas for artefacts that might be placed in the Anthropocene Museum in 2050.

Reflecting

• Individually, reflect in your journals on your ideas. Which ideas are you most drawn to? Why do you think that is? How would you like to develop this idea further?