Baking Connections

Izzy, Lucy, Lily B.

The Baking Connections team noticed a lack of community support, personal autonomy, and purpose in local senior homes, leading them to the question, “How Might We place increased value on what seniors have to offer in our Boise community?” In March, they connected with Mercy Housing, a low income senior housing facility, to throw an event called Cookie Connection. This event empowered a senior resident to teach the rest of the participants her signature cookie recipe, helping her pass along her delicious knowledge. After the event, the seniors continued to ask when the team was coming back, so they implemented Cookie Connection Part Two on May 11th. Due to the positive feedback, they began to think: “How Might We expand this idea to other schools and senior homes?” The team developed a curriculum that can take anyone through the necessary steps to implement a Baking Connections Event from start to finish. The knowledge shared by the seniors and the relationships created with the residents at Mercy Housing greatly affected the teens, proving that the key to a happy community is, indeed, “baking” a connection.

Code Red

Bloom, Iris, Sophia, Elsa

The Code Red team discovered that misinformation surrounding menstruation and anatomy can lead to people mistreating their bodies later on in life. This insight came from an interview the team conducted with an OB/GYN, where they learned that it is surprisingly common for women to come into appointments without accurate information on how to care for their own bodies. Knowing this, Code Red’s intended end-users became pre-menstrators between the ages of 10-14, since pre-menstruators are more prone to misinformation and lack of confidence in feeling prepared for their period. From this, the team created their HMW statement: “How Might We combat misinformation surrounding the menstrual cycle and support menstruators in learning about their body?” To approach the problem and solve it, Code Red planned and researched how they could support menstruators as they found a feeling of love and comfort with their periods. For their implementation, Code Red hosted a Menstrual Meetup with their end-users, where they learned about their body in a fun and interactive way. This included a game based on Family Feud, anatomy coloring pages, and an informational pamphlet. They had 13 participants from Foothills School of Arts and Science, Sage International, and Anser Charter school. At the end of the event, they held a reflection where they received overwhelmingly positive responses. Participants said that if the team held another event, the students would love to come back. The event was a fun and engaging way to stop the stigmas surrounding periods and spread truthful information on how to take care of your body and period.

GROW

Nydia, Jack, Canyon, Lilly H., Micah

How Might We restore native plants important to indigenous communities? GROW, also known as Guided Restoration of Wildlife, is a team working to repopulate plant species vital to Idaho's indigenous cultures. Through various empathy interviews and experiences, the group noticed the decline in plants like Arrowleaf Balsamroot, Common Camas, and Biscuitroot, all of which are essential resources. Although the loss of these plants affects Indigenous communities the most, the target audience for implementation is members of the Boise community who are willing to learn about issues threatening native plants. Jenny Williams, Steven Hatcher, and Tai Simpson played pivotal roles in the development of GROW. Their input and guidance created a path for the team's final goal and implementation. Over the past twelve weeks, GROW has gone through many phases of empathy and failing forward. The team's biggest challenge was cycling through different problems, end-users, and ideas for implementation. From police brutality to missing and murdered indigenous women and even protecting salmon populations, the struggle of settling on a topic became one of GROW’s best assets because it created the full project that the group is the most confident and passionate about being a part of. These issues may seem very different, but there is one unifying thread of passion for supporting Indigenous communities in Idaho. After many weeks of ideation, the team's final implementation is actively in the works. GROW will distribute Arrowleaf Balsamroot and Biscuitroot seeds, Camas Lily bulbs, and informational resources to learn how to maintain their new native plant while also understanding the cultural significance it relates to Indigenous communities. The project includes a collaboration with the Lapwai Boys and Girls Club; GROW will work with students to repopulate essential plants on the Nez Perce reservation while also working with members of the tribe to show students the many important traditional uses for these plants. Although the team's solution will not eradicate the problem identified, it is a step in a positive direction and a catalyst for change.

LGBTQ in Middle School

Grey, Finn, Sawyer, Moss

The problem this team was working to solve was a lack of representation and safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth in middle school. The issue of hostility towards the queer community is most prominent in a school environment, making it difficult for young kids navigating their identities to feel accepted. The team approached this problem with the objective of making safer spaces (free of homophobia) for LGBTQ+ middle schoolers. To gain insight into their end user’s daily struggles, the team reached out to several middle schools with Gay Straight Alliance clubs asking to conduct empathy interviews. After meeting with several teachers and two separate communities of queer middle schoolers, the team found that the misrepresentation of LGBTQ+ culture in the media was something the students were tired of being exposed to. The lack of portrayal of queer characters in books, movies, etc. made the students feel isolated from the world and left room for their unsupportive peers to make misconceptions about them. With this information, the team began to ideate, working to create a product that would help reduce this feeling of isolation. They decided to create an LGBTQ specific coloring book featuring only queercoded fictional characters as a means to get positive depictions of the LGBTQ communtiy out into the world. They prototyped a coloring book using a list of characters they deemed as members of the queer community and presented the draft to their end users during an in-person meeting. The students were thrilled to see so many characters they held close to their hearts sharing the same identity as them, and immediately began giving suggestions for more characters to add. This reaction told the team that this was something that needed to be made a reality to better the future of queer kids everywhere. The support shown for the coloring book was immense; not only did it gain the approval of the students themselves, but it also caught the attention of the Verdi Ecoschool down in Florida. Several of them offered to buy the finished product once everything was finalized.

Just Sex

Tovi, Abella, Lilly F., Eden, Sara (not pictured)

For too long, our society has stigmatized the idea of sex education, demonized the people who advocate for it, and promoted inaccurate, homophobic, and misogynistic ideals. Schools are prohibited from teaching, the internet is unreliable, and parents are under-prepared or unwilling to fill the gaps in teenagers' understanding. This leaves sexually active teens at great risk of disease, pregnancy, and even injury; abstinence-only teaching doesn't prevent sex, it prevents safe sex. The Just Sex Dlab team asks: “How Might We bring holistic sex ed to our community?” Well, the first step was to cut out the middle men. The Just Sex team is creating a peer-to-peer, expert-verified, informative, and fun resource in the form of a Zine. This way, they can go over the heads of conservative school boards and get accurate information directly into the hands of people who need it. The team arrived at this solution after months of conversation over personal experience and the current state of sex ed legislation. They found how common the experience of inaccurate and insubstantial to straight up harmful sex ed classes were among their peers, and how they all shared a feeling of great frustration. This shared anger is what drove them to create a solution that was not only outside the system, but anti-systemic.

Team Inclusive Sports

Mickey, Dante, Jayden, Cam

The team initially asked the question: “How do we support trans and intersex women playing sports?” While this is a strong start, it doesn't get to the root of the institutional issue of how these athletes are being treated. They want to create a real lasting change by impacting the people around the athletes, not the athletes themselves. The team decided to solve for coaches, teams, and athletic directors as they can form positive relationships with transgender athletes. Coaches in particular can set an example as mentors and support systems for their players. This caused us to ask: “How Might We assist sports leaders into making safer spaces for their female transgender and intersex players?” The Team Inclusive Sports team ideated on a tool that would allow the team members of trans and intersex players to empathize with them. They wanted to create something that was engaging and data driven to grow empathy and shine light on what these athletes experience. The team decided to make a video game. They struggled with empathy interviews, yet found Capitol High School Color Guard as their community partner. The Color Guard loved our idea of a video game that would be simple, yet impactful; the player goes through the struggles and triumphs of what it is like to be a trans or intersex woman in sports. She faces harassment, but also gets an unexpected amount of support from her coach and some teammates. When creating the characters for our game, we decided to go with something unexpected: clowns. We knew it was a bold move, but we needed our players to avoid connecting gender to the characters present, and clowns don't have stereotypical ways of expressing gender. Many trans people can relate to the feeling of disconnect from their gender identity, which is why it's important to include in our game. The clowns are important to represent the compromised self that many trans people can connect to. The game is not yet complete, but they plan to keep working with the Capital High Color Guard to get it done. They still have some important things to do for it, such as coding it and finalizing our drafts, but have made a lot of progress. They plan on finalizing the game over the summer and implementing it at the start of the fall semester. At that time, they will be more prepared to demo their game with coaches which will allow for a more empathetic experience.

Healthy Relationships

Sam, Cody, Melanie, River

Maintaining healthy relationships is difficult. The people involved don’t always know which behaviors are toxic and which are condonable. Relationship skills aren’t taught in school and are rarely discussed with children, leading to a lack of awareness. This can make it tougher for teens to foster healthy relationships with their peers, as they may not know how to recognize toxic behaviors, either when they are using them or when those behaviors are being used against them. The Healthy Relationships team focused on creating and fostering skills for middle school students to be vulnerable, appreciate self love, practice effective communication, build boundaries, and explore the culture in relationships. Knowing this, the team began by asking, “How Might We encourage healthy relationship styles to avoid toxic situations amongst youth?” With a problem and end-user in mind, the team began ideating for potential solutions. Through brainstorming and empathy, the team discovered that teens struggle making connections but bond over interactive, hands-on activities like games. The team considered multiple solutions, including a three-day workshop and a relationship-centered video game. Ultimately, they landed on creating a Healthy Relationships Connection Course, a short but engaging conversation-styled course centered around connection. This connection course employed bonding games and open, vulnerable conversations to allow for teens to learn about what the foundations of healthy relationships are, acquire tools to use in the real world, and foster connection between the participants. The middle schoolers attending seemed unsure initially, but as the course progressed and friendships were strengthened, the team could see the development as it was happening. The Healthy Relationships team hopes to be able to continue demonstrating this behavior, especially knowing from the positive feedback they received from the attendees that the experience made them feel safe in a group and vulnerable in a good way.

Sustainable Confidence

Cadence, Marley, Nora (not pictured)

The Sustainable Confidence Team started their journey by working with JUMP to design a space for Illumibrate—an event that focuses on sustainable art and bringing the community together. Unfortunately, Illumibrate was canceled and the team was forced to pivot. The design team knew they wanted to continue with the topic of sustainability and art, but they weren’t sure how they might connect this with an end-user. An empathy interview with the Ada County Landfill brought the urgency and importance of keeping waste out of the landfill to the team's attention. They considered how many materials entering the landfill could still be used for creative purposes, and this inspired an empathy interview with the director of the ReUse Market. After looking into reusing materials artistically and having interviews with Chique Lixo and Pam McKnight (local artists), the team learned that creative confidence in students plummets as they grow older. That broke their hearts. Because of this, they began to look at students as potential end-users. This discovery ultimately led them to their current HMW Statement: “How Might We galvanize middle schoolers’ creative confidence through the reuse of materials?” From this, the team decided they wanted to see first-hand how middle schoolers' creativity was affected by different materials. The Sustainable Confidence Team designed an interactive art experiment with a 6th grade class at Lowell Elementary to determine how working with reused materials affects their confidence. They observed that a majority of students felt less pressure and more free to experiment while using the cardboard when compared to the paper. The team is using feedback from that experiment to iterate on several ideas that involve working with organizations like the ReUse Market to help grow creative confidence through reusing materials in the classroom and the community.