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World Creativity and Innovation Week: April 15 – April 21

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, marked by an increased use of AI and automation, is expected to have a profound impact on the workforce. 

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report found that by 2022, machines and algorithms will increase their contribution to specific tasks by 57% and in some categories of jobs the ratio of work done by machines vs. humans is going to tip towards machines. Tasks that are repetitive in nature and involve sequential thinking are easy targets for automation. Creative, non-linear ways of thinking are much harder to automate and future job growth is expected to come primarily from the creative domain. As the report outlines, “Proficiency in new technologies is only one part of the 2022 skills equation, however, as ‘human’ skills such as creativity, originality and initiative, critical thinking, persuasion, and negotiation will likewise retain or increase their value.”

Creativity is no longer just nice-to-have, it is now an indispensable skill for students to build. 

The UN recognized the growing importance of creativity, and in 2017 it designated April 21st as the World Creativity and Innovation Day (WCID). Their goal is to raise the awareness of the role of creativity and innovation in human and economic development. April 21, the day before Earth Day, April 22, was deliberately chosen to emphasize the role creativity plays in solving global challenges to create a sustainable planet.

The origin of the WCID goes back several years. It was founded in 2001 by Marci Segal, after seeing an article on the Canadian Creativity Crisis. Having studied creativity at the International Center for Studies in Creativity, SUNY Buffalo earlier, she decided to raise awareness around creativity and its impact around the world. In 2006, the day expanded to a week-long celebration starting on April 15th, Leonardo daVinci’s birthday, and culminating on April 21st. The World Creativity and Innovation Week (WCIW) was born!  

WCIW starts next week on Thursday (4/15) and there are several events planned for that week. Here are a few fun events geared towards building and encouraging student creativity. 

  • Seven-Day CreateTUBEity Challenge, April 15-21 12 pm EST: Dr. Cyndi Burnett, Creativity expert and Director of Possibilities at Creativity and Education, and children’s book author Barney Saltzberg, are going to subject themselves to a new creativity challenge led by a different creativity expert each day from around the world. Join them for a FREE daily 15-minute live-stream event on CreateTubeity. Appropriate for the young, and the young at heart!
  • Global Innovation Field Trip (GIFT), April 17th-April 18th: GIFT is a 24-hour, virtual, multi-country event hosting presentations from innovators currently spanning 28 countries. Young innovators and educators from across the globe will share their ideas to support and inspire innovation, and the event is free for anyone to attend. “GIFT provides an excellent platform for students to share their stories of innovation with a global audience and inspires educators to incorporate innovation, invention, language, culture and a variety of other subjects utilizing STEAM skills into their regular daily lessons,” says Juli Shively, GIFT Co-Founder and COO of Innovation World. 
  • Belouga’s Creativity and Innovation Playlist: To inspire students and educators to learn more about creativity, Belouga has created a playlist of lessons for the World Creativity and Innovation Day. There are over 50 lessons corresponding to over 30hrs of content, covering many different aspects of creativity in our lives. 

I hope you can find time to join in these creativity focused events next week, or be creative in your own way! And if you choose to do your own creative activity, don’t forget to register it with WCIW and share with others. 

This article first appeared on edCircuit. 

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Creativity Hack: Doodle To Discover Your Assumptions

We are starting a new blog category called “Creativity Hacks”. Each blog will contain one concrete technique that can be used in the classroom to help bring out student creativity. Our first one is a technique to help students find underlying assumptions they hold. 

About The Hack

A highly effective creativity technique is to reverse a commonly-held assumption which often gives radically new insights. 

When we teach our invention class one of the tasks we give students is to find an assumption they are making about the object of their innovation. As a warm up activity, we play a game called “Opposite Day”, where students work in teams and pick an assumption to reverse and present their solution to the rest of the class in about 5 minutes. For example, if the assumption is “Tables have legs”, then students have to reverse it (“Tables don’t have legs”) and then find a design or a situation where the reversal will make sense. When we gave this prompt to one group, they came up with a table that is held up with wires attached to the ceiling and can be lowered when needed or raised to make more space in the room. 

The nice thing about this technique is that it often gives very original ideas that one would normally not come up with. However, we found that while older students (middle school and up) are reasonably comfortable with coming up with assumptions themselves, elementary students have a harder time. They are able to come up with solutions once an assumption is given to them, but finding an underlying assumption itself is tricky. 

This brings us to a creativity hack we discovered. We found that asking students to first draw their object and then question each part of their drawing makes it easier for them to identify assumptions they can subsequently work with. We all hold mental models of objects that reflect commonly found real world implementations. By doodling we bring to surface the salient features of the object model, which can then be used to generate new ideas. 

Summary

Finally, here is a quick summary of the creativity hack and how to use it with students.

DescriptionDoodling your idea can help surface assumptions you hold about the object or idea. Once surfaced, it’s easier to reverse those assumptions and get new insights.
ExampleIf you ask students to draw a table they will typically draw a rectangular surface with four legs. They then question each part – “Should tables have four or any legs?”, “Does the tabletop have to be one flat surface?”. Examining each question can give students fresh ideas and insights for designing a new kind of table. 
Tips Give students <1min to doodle their object in order to bring out the most common held model.Reiterate to students that the quality of the drawing isn’t important but drawing all parts is. 
ExtensionsWhile we have used this technique on concrete objects (invention, design thinking), it is possible to extend this to abstract concepts like biases. For example, if students are asked to doodle a scientist, do most of them draw a man in a lab coat? If so, it can lead to a good discussion about women as scientists and different kinds of scientific disciplines. 
Hack: Doodle To Discover Your Assumptions

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Inventor Spotlight: Geeth Nunna

Our featured student inventor is Geeth Nunna, who created an interesting storage pouch. Her idea won a national level award as part of the “Student Ideas for a Better America” competition organized by the National Museum of Education. 

Here is Geeth talking about her invention in more detail.  

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

My name is Geeth Nunna and I’m in 5th grade! My interests-hobbies-favorite subjects consist of video games, social network, drama, acting, music, science, social studies, etc. And, my dream job(s) are to be a model, an actor, or a doctor/investigator helping discover new medical research.

What is your invention and how does it work?

My invention is a multi conventional storage pouch! Basically it has several layers, and each layer has a certain item(s), for example: The top layer has your pens, while the bottom layers have something else like your notes, food, or anything else of your choice.

What inspired you to develop this invention?

At the time I had made this invention, I was very interested in d.i.y’s. However, as I researched further about these “do it yourself” crafts they were very harmful to the environment as they used lots of plastics that couldn’t be recycled. So I decided to make something that could be used as several things, a lunch box, pencil case, cosmetics case, etc. And not only is this invention making less waste, it’s also made out of recycled items, so that it can be made out of someone else’s waste, and when the owner wants to throw it away it can also be re-recycled.

Did your prototype work? How was that experience? 

Yes my prototype did work on the first try, however our inventions had to be made out of cardboard and paper. Yet I still managed to make it work!

What are some things you learned from your MindAntix camp that will help you in the future? 

I learned a lot about adapting to new situations. For example, if one of my ideas didn’t work, I learned to change it to make it more useful for my purpose rather than trash the whole idea itself.

Who is your favorite inventor and why? 

My favorite inventor is George Washington Carver. This is because, to me, the whole purpose of inventing is for safety to people and the planet. Mr. Carver found 300 uses for peanuts again being resourceful and his creativity with the plant helped the whole world, and using one thing to make several others is another way of reproducing, again also helping the planet!

What kind of problems do you want to solve in the future?

I want to help the loss of animals in the ocean, due to litter. And I also want to help the homeless! 

How will you use your prize money? 

I’m not too sure right now, but I’m sure that I’ll find a good purpose for it.

Congratulations Geeth for winning the award! We hope to see you solve bigger challenges in the future.

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Inventor Spotlight: Pahal Sah

Our featured student inventor is Pahal Sah, who created a more useful backpack. Her idea won a national level award as part of the “Student Ideas for a Better America” competition organized by the National Museum of Education. 

Here is Pahal talking about her invention in more detail.  

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

Hi! I’m Pahal Sah, a 5th Grade Quest student at Albert Einstein Elementary. I love reading books about mystery and fiction, arts and crafts, playing board games, and playing with friends! My favorite subjects are Reading and Social Studies, mainly because of the fun projects we have.

What is your invention and how does it work?

My Invention is the Fluffy Carrier 9000, and it is a backpack, a normal one, but with a few extra features. One of them is the wheels and handle, like a suitcase. Whenever you pull the handle, wheels pop out of the bottom. I also added an expandable pocket in the middle, and if you unstrap it, the other side turns into a blanket! There are many pockets for school supplies, and another great part is that the backpack itself is waterproof.  

What inspired you to develop this invention?

Two problems inspired me – how wet backpacks got during rainy days, and that most of the time I couldn’t fit all my supplies in my bag at school. It was a real pain carrying my water bottle, folder, and lunchbox while trying to board a bus.

Did your prototype work? How was that experience? 

Yes, my prototype worked! I made a bag using construction paper; the hardest part was shaping it. I’m pretty sure I used some cardboard for the base, and I decorated it with even more “pockets”. For the wheel, I taped a small circle and the handle, I used a piece of construction paper to sort that out. I was very happy at the end when my prototype looked like an actual backpack! 

What are some things you learned from your MindAntix camp that will help you in the future? 

To think out of the box and to be creative. Later, I will have to make my own ideas not copy them from other people. I really loved how we were supposed to make our own inventions! 

Who is your favorite inventor and why? 

I don’t really have a favorite inventor. All the inventors stand out to me!

What kind of problems do you want to solve in the future?

In the future, I want to solve the problems that are affecting nature such as Global Warming, helping save endangered animals, and more. 

How will you use your prize money? 

I actually haven’t thought about that…maybe to get something I really want? Or maybe I could use it to get a new game or book!

Congratulations Pahal for winning the award! We hope to see you solve bigger challenges in the future.

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Inventor Spotlight: Manan Ghosh

Our featured student inventor is Manan Ghosh, who designed an interesting board game. His idea won a national level award as part of the “Student Ideas for a Better America” competition organized by the National Museum of Education. 

Here is Manan talking about his game in more detail.  

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

My name is Manan Ghosh. I’m in 5th Grade Quest at Ella Baker Elementary School in Redmond. My favorite subjects are Science and Math. During my free time I like to play Minecraft and build items in Paint 3D that I can use in Minecraft. My dream job is to be a scientist.

What is your invention and how does it work?

My invention is a board game called “Castles at Battle”. In the game, you move your pawn across the board to collect  resources such as Wood, Rock, Metal and Bricks. You then use these resources to build parts of your castle that then do battle with each other. As part of this, you can enhance the defenses of your castle by adding  things like Walls, Towers and Drawbridges, using the resources that you have collected. Resources also let you attack your opponent’s castles by buying attacks, like Knight Attack and Archer Attack. It is a game of moves and countermoves, as you try to get enough resources to defend your own castle while also collecting resources to attack your opponent. You win if you eliminate all other players, this is done by sending out an attack that deals more attack points then the defense points of the other castle.

What inspired you to develop this invention?

I like games involving war and when you have to focus on more than one thing to win. Making 3-D models of castles, walls and towers was a lot of fun and made playing the game more real.

Did your prototype work? How was that experience? 

I could not finish my prototype though I did make some of the 3D printed items for my game. Since it was my first time doing 3D printing and my game pieces were a bit complex, it took me more time than I expected. It was still a lot of fun.

What are some things you learned from your MindAntix camp that will help you in the future? 

I learned how to design 3D objects using new tools and print them. I have played board games, but it is different to think about board games from the point of view of the designer. You have to think about different things.

Who is your favorite inventor and why? 

Leonardo Da Vinci is my favorite inventor. He was an artist and also made many inventions in various fields.

What kind of problems do you want to solve in the future?

I would like to find ways to solve the problem of too much plastic and pollution in the oceans.

How will you use your prize money? 

I will save my money until I find some good use for it.

Congratulations Manan for winning the award! We hope you enjoy playing your board game with your friends and family.