Sec i Soc is an educational project that brings product design closer to students to help them discover new possibilities in their path.
This is achieved by working on emotional education linked with the creative process.
The project deals with the skills of teamwork and individual self-awareness. These will be used to develop the product: a seat.
The seat is designed by the whole class, doing teamwork and is individually customized to help each member regain the sense of belonging.
Local
Spain
Barcelona region.
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Maria Last name: Muñarch Garcia Gender: Female Nationality: Spain Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Balmes 362, 5, 1 Town: Barcelona Postal code: 08006 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 699 65 75 71 E-mail:mmunarchg@gmail.com
First name: Martina Last name: Oriol Cateura Gender: Female Nationality: Spain Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Padró de la Creu 8-10, A, 2 Town: Barcelona Postal code: 08017 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 722 58 11 03 E-mail:martinaoriolcateura@gmail.com
Project Design Educational Projects (PEDP) and their initiative “Sec i Soc” wishes to bring the discipline of product design closer to High School students to show them new possibilities for their formative path ahead. It works on a global perspective directly on Emotional Education and the creative process , creating a link between these two realities.
The project deals directly with Emotional competences such as teamwork, cooperation and self-awareness. Once these skills have been acquired they are transferred to the workshop and used to develop the product, in this case, a seat.
This product is designed by the class as a whole, putting into practice the emotional skills learned, where each student personalizes it so that they are all represented in the product.
The project is developed in 4 phases, each of which is essential to the global design process and is approached in a specific way.
Emotional phase: Emotional Education activities are carried out to acquire the competencies or skills needed to work on co-designing later in the workshop .
Ideation or “thinking” phase: the first creative steps are taken. The students will co-design a seat by going through the necessary aspects of checking viability and sustainability. Drafts, models, prototypes, modifications...
Production phase: mechanizing all the pieces for every seat and producing the seats by assembling and customizing them.
Postproduction phase: includes the process of creating and putting together an Exhibition in the community to express and show the results of their creations.
59 students, each with a seat of their own. We are all different but we share the same structure.
Emotional education
Educational project
Product design
CoDesign
Inclusion
A key objective is to promote sustainability and transmit its values by re-using materials and producing locally.
To achieve this we work with local material recycling companies so as to re-use them and give them a second life.
Materials that cannot be retrieved are obtained only from local sources and we survey the market to obtain those that are most ecological and less invasive for the environment.
We have also conveyed the importance of taking care of materials so as to extend their time of use.
When designing and producing the final pieces we try to obtain the most benefit from the resources used and minimize residual products and their impact, as is the case with mechanized wood where we have worked trying to generate the least possible amount of residue.
These values are essential for our initiative and it is essential to transmit them to the students taking part in the project in order to make them part of the change that we wish to achieve.
This initiative benefits several sectors of the population.
In the first place, it intends to help students acquire the knowledge and tools derived from Emotional Education so they can use them for the initiative and also in their personal and professional life, and everything that awaits them in the future. It is a resource that widens horizons and therefore helps to reduce vulnerability.
It has an influence on discovering new professional possibilities for the future, showing them about an unknown artistic discipline that is very transversal and multidisciplinary which can awaken new and varied interests in these young people. The consequence can be a newly gained interest in continuing to study , thus reducing dropping out of school and vulnerability.
Finally, this initiative benefits not only the students but also the community and the city as a whole. It creates a network of cooperation with public entities within the community. These take part and help to put the initiative into practice, and they receive the diffusion and support from the students who discover the public services the community has to offer and the possibility of future new relationships with the neighborhood.
Inclusion is a key part of the Project and is present from the beginning when organizing and planning, and also in the final execution and evaluation.
Participating in this project gives the students a feeling of safety and freedom, both individually and as a group. They are offered a safe place in which to analyze and reflect on their identity, and learn to express themselves in order to convert all this into a new artistic language: the design of a product.
The initiative of the Project is designed to be carried out in all types of educational centers, regardless of their financial or material resources, geographical location or academic complexity.
Since the Project is transversal it allows us to acquire a variety of competences and is thus adaptable to all school curricula, regardless of age group, language, educational system… it can be replicated in educational centers around the world, maintaining a local model while having a global impact.
One objective of the initiative is to find and aid the individual and collective empowerment of the participants, through the process of inclusion in which the project is developed.
Since Emotional Education is one of the pillars on which the project is based, personal growth both individually and collectively is transformed into a learning experience for the future, thus becoming a tool for reducing vulnerability.
As a Project that is carried out in educational centers, its application and development generate new spaces and learning experiences which create an educational engagement that contributes to reducing the rate of students dropping out of school. In the long run, this fact has a positive impact on society.
This initiative establishes a connection between local public resources and the population through the cooperation that takes place during its development.
For the correct development of this initiative, direct cooperation has been established with the following local entities.
This type of collaboration can be sought and found locally wherever the Project is being developed, making replication easier and maintaining a local model while having a global impact.
In the first place we have the educational system that provides us the contact with educational centers and their students.
For the first phase of the project we worked with the “Fundació La Granja” as an initial contact with Emotional Education in the form of a workshop in an environment surrounded by nature.
To obtain the materials to produce the objects, the Town Hall helped us to contact recycling centers within the neighborhood where the educational center is located.
For material that cannot be retrieved or re-used we worked with a local supplier of raw material, “Fustes Montgros”.
During all the different phases of the Project we have cooperated with “Ateneus de Fabricació Digital” (FabLabs) and public entities associated with the Town Hall, with whom we have done training and workshops in the neighborhood to help us in the process of teaching the students. This collaboration has also led to establish the link with the TMDC, a co-working workshop where mechanization of the products (seats) has taken place.
Finally, we have also established a collaboration with the neighborhood Community Centre which has provided us with a space for the closure and diffusion of the project and the possibility of giving the students a place to express themselves through the exhibition of their creations.
This initiative promotes acquiring transversal multidisciplinary competencies that are interconnected and present in all phases of the project. If one of them is missing this affects them all and the process does not achieve its main objectives, such as the development of competences in the students.
The basic competences are:
Sustainability, emotional education, creativity and design process, digital design and manufacturing processes, artistic communication and expression, technology and cooperation.
They are all interconnected: Emotional Education allows us to represent ourselves in a product (a seat) acquiring the competences of production and manufacturing, making them as sustainable as possible. Emotional Education and knowledge about design, manufacture and sustainability are essential to expose and communicate the results of our creation.
The project has different innovative aspects. Discovering new disciplines and professions can lead to future training and professionalization as a result of motivation and feeling empowered. This is our aim and, for the first time, we have brought product design closer to students in High School. It is essential to do so before the important stage of having to decide their professional future path or entering the workforce. This can help them to acquire knowledge about themselves,their abilities, skills, and even preferences and motivation.
The methodology used is also new, and the way we transfer knowledge and practice of product design to educational centers goes through a process of Emotional Education in which the students will be given essential tools for their future, by using a new language and artistic creation.
This transversal initiative can be adapted to any school curriculum, in other words, it can be adjusted to different courses considered elemental by means of a participating and experimental educational model, making it transferable and adaptable to other contexts.
One peculiarity of this project is that it can be replicated to other places through the educational system. It can also be easily replicated in other areas with a different context and different beneficiaries.
We chose to focus on the area of Education because this was an unknown discipline in this context. Seeing that the project has been a success we are thinking of taking it to other contexts where the feeling of belonging is a relevant “objective”.
When adapting the project, the learning nucleus connected to product design (which in our case was Emotional Education) can change and focus in a new direction considering the different circumstances. These objectives can be emotional: recover a feeling of belonging or increase our self-esteem. Sustainable: become aware of the life span of plastics or extend the duration of things that already exist. All these possible adaptations are not yet a reality like the “Sec i Soc” project, but are in ideation phase as possibilities in the future.
Finally, the fact that the scope of development of the project is at local level allows replication to be easier, since the place where it occurs is also where we will find all that is necessary to carry it out.
The initiative is based on learning, through creativity and free experimentation both individual and collective. Learning takes place during the four phases of the process of creating a design product (a seat).
The "Emotional Phase" is where they acquire the Emotional competences that will serve to identify themselves individually and collectively to be able to transfer this to an artistic plane. This first phase will be present all along the process, connecting, adapting and complementing all the other phases.
The "Ideation phase" is where they will learn the artistic competences involved in product design to begin to design and represent themselves in the product. Before beginning, we underline the importance of sustainability so that the students understand the importance of these values and take them into account in their creations. They also learn about basic design techniques as well as digital manufacturing production processes. This is done with the aid and collaboration of public entities within the community.
The "Production phase" consists of making the pieces or parts of the seat, assembling the seat and finally, transforming it into a representation of each individuality within the group. As a result there is once again a great deal of reflection, identification and transformation into the artistic plane.
The "Postproduction phase" is the final step of the initiative where closure of months of learning takes place. The students get the chance to expose their creations and communicate them publicly. This exhibition takes place in the neighborhood community center, strengthening the local network.
As a society we face many global challenges, thus the importance of being aware of them and taking part. The ODS is the list of objectives resulting from global challenges that need to be tackled according to the 2030 Agenda.
For us it is essential to focus on these objectives of sustainable development and act accordingly, especially ODS 4,5,8,9,11,12 i 13.
It is important to ensure quality education, promoting the development and boosting of capacities to be inclusive and equitable, to bring students closer to new professional futures, minimizing school dropout and increasing professionalization, thus reducing the risk of vulnerability.
To generate awareness of the importance of sustainability since understanding and applying it is essential day to day to generate change and prevent worse circumstances in the future. These values pertain not only to the project specifically, but also to the everyday habits of people and therefore are applicable to everyone.
Finally, Emotional Education contributes to reducing vulnerability as well as creating resilience through personal acceptance, leading to anticipation and adaptation to a new future. Resilience as a result of empowerment leads to a sense of belonging and community that helps to develop the ability to feel solidarity and reduce vulnerability.
This project is in a process of growth. During 2021-2022 we established its bases and development, and between February and June it was put into practice for the first time as a pilot experience.
The results obtained in the pilot experience have been very positive. They have been very well received by the educational center and its people (professors, students, directors and counselors) as well as the entities in the city and especially in the community involved in the initiative, who have helped to develop the project in the best way possible.
The pilot test run has been necessary and essential to improve and adjust the initiative in order to reach the objectives that were set. Each step has been established and carried out after a period of research and documentation. Two types of evaluations have been performed: the first were subject to immediate modifications that were carried out during follow-up, and a final evaluation. Both have helped us to make changes when the approach was not close enough to reality, and to set the iímit of the needs and objectives of the project.
This evaluation allows us to improve the project and its replication and transference to other spheres.
It is clear that sustainability has to be applied in our daily lives in order to achieve a better future. We need to raise awareness and apply it to ourselves. From our initiative, we show the importance of sustainability starting from the manufacturing and production sector. This industry is one of the most polluting, so it has to incorporate a sustainability strategy to minimize its negative impact.
Throughout the initiative, sustainability awareness has been applied at all stages of the project to live in accordance with this value such as designing seat parts minimizing material waste, designing simpler but complete ways of producing to speed up the manufacturing process and therefore using less energy, using material waste, using paints and paint supplies on demand to eliminate waste, using public transport to get to the centres where the workshops are held...
It is important that students understand all the impacts at every step of production and manufacturing and that they are led to reflect on the impact of their daily actions on the environment. Precisely, getting the students to think about their daily habits so they can transform them into sustainable ones, minimizing their impact and making them aware of its importance, is one of the missions of our project.
