1. First Class Reflection: On the first day of class I was not really sure what to expect. After going over the syllabus, we further discussed what our goal is in the class, which is to figure out how to please all the stakeholders of Burnet Woods and make the park more appealing to students.  While I am not really familiar with pleasing stakeholders, I am familiar with making a park more appealing to students.  Back at home I was part of an organization that organized events in my town's public square.  The events were mainly geared towards attracting kids our age but we also hosted events for other age groups.  I believe that this experience will be beneficial for contributing to this class.  I also learned today in class that many of the students in this class are engineering students, which is good because they generally are good with problem solving and being practical (I've heard that around campus a lot in my first week but I'm not sure how true that is). Although this class doesn't really tie in with my major of Paralegal Studies, it does focus on a topic and goal that I am familiar with so I look forward to taking on this task while adjusting to campus life. 9/3/14

2. Second Class Entry: Today in class we began with an exercise in which we were asked to draw what we thought Burnet Woods was like.  I had never been to the park before so my diagram was a complete shot in the dark.  My drawing mainly consisted of wooded areas and hiking trails because those were the main features I had kept hearing around campus. We were then asked to use a different colored pen to add on to the drawing what we wanted to see in Burnet Woods.  For this part of the exercise I added a stage to help bring back some of the ideas I've used in the past to attract students to the park back home.  I also added some small games, like minigolf and disc golf courses, to maybe attract more students as well.  After the exercise we took a field trip to Burnet Woods.  I was pleasantly surprised that my drawings weren't that far off.  After walking past a few fountains we found a large open area that I think would be perfect for my ideas.  On the way out, Prof. Christopher mentioned that a building we passed had a large planetarium in it.  I think that this planetarium might be a great way to maybe bring more classes and clubs interested in astronomy over to Burnet Woods and help the park feel more like a part of campus. 9/3/14

3. Third Class Entry: In today's class we began by going over a few parts of the syllabus that we had not discussed at the first class.  I thought that the "reading discussion competitions" seemed like an intriguing idea.  We then discussed one of the required readings, A Whack on the Side of the Head by Robert Von Oech.  The purpose of reading Whack is to become more aware of creative thinking and how we can apply creative ideas to the questions we are tasked with solving dealing with Burnet Woods. While talking about Whack, we began to shift more into distinguishing the features of design thinking as opposed to scientific thinking.  Throughout our years of schooling, we have been drilled more and more that there is only one right answer, which is a more scientific way of thinking.  Design thinking is open to more than one right answer and choosing from several answers, which is the best course of action, an aspect of thinking

that I believe will be used a lot moving forward throughout the semester when deciding what to do with Burnet Woods.  We were also asked to consider if we were beginning by asking the right question, which is, "What do the students ant to get out of Burnet Woods and how do we go about getting their input?"  I believe that this is a good first question and have an idea about gathering student input that I saw from President Ono while scrolling through my Twitter feed.  I'll share this idea at the next class. 9/3/14

4. Fourth Class Entry 9/4/14: Today in class we focused heavily on the assigned Von Oech and Gladwell readings, specifically on the topic of thin-slicing.  We began class by discussing how analogies and metaphors have been easy ways for people to express their ideas for centuries, which was the focus of the Von Oech chapter we read.  Along with the examples that Von Oech gave in the chapter, I thought that Prof. Russell’s example of the two ways of thinking involving the fox and the hedgehog was a very good representation of design thinking versus scientific thinking.  After this discussion, we moved on to talk about thin-slicing and how split-second decisions are not always as ill-informed as people perceive them to be, a good example of this being the firefighter evacuating the burning house from the Gladwell reading.  Along with the discussion we had our first reading discussion competition.  I liked the idea and thought it was an effective and fun way to reflect on what we had read and offer our own views on the readings as well.  I also liked being a part of the evaluation team first because now I feel like I have a better idea of what to expect and how future competitions will be scored. 9/9/14

5. Fifth Class Entry 9/9/14: Today in class we began by talking about the three types of people (Liars, BS'ers, and Intelligencers) and watching a video.  I enjoyed the video and this discussion because it was both humorous and informative.  We then began to focus more on the Intelligencers and how they break the rules to gain more knowledge and intelligence for others to use in the future, just like Von Oech discussed in his "Follow the Rules" chapter.  We then talked about how there is a duality to breaking the rules to form new ideas.  Even though you are thinking of something new, an act of creation, you are also still breaking the rules, an act of destruction.  This led us to watch a clip from the TV show The West Wing about how a group of scientists proposed that changing the way we look at the map could reduce social inequality.  After the clip, we discussed transdisciplinary thinking and the fact that sometimes creative ideas can come from looking at concepts in another field or discipline.  The example that Prof. Russell gave of this was biomimicry; how architects are now trying to design buildings that are set up like and can behave like organisms.  We ended the class by getting our transdisciplinary group assignment.  Since I was the only paralegal I was paired up with an accounting major, who also just happens to be named Evan. 9/11/14

6. Sixth Class Entry 9/11/14: Today in class we had our second field trip to Burnett Woods. After we were divided and sent on our separate ways, my group went down by the planetarium and walked around the various trails.  We eventually came out by the

gazebo, where we sat and discussed some plans we had for the park.  These plans included better lighting in the pavilion, improving or renovating the playground, and getting better signage for the trails.  Our group also was accompanied by the photographer who was familiar with the area and agreed with our plans.  After our discussion we walked back to meet up with the group at the stone statue.  Although we were a little late getting back, we learned that our ideas were similar to the ideas shared by the rest of the class.  Prof. Christopher was happy to hear that our ideas as a class were practical and not ridiculous as he had feared would be the case. 9/16/14

7. Seventh Class Entry 9/16/14: Today in class we all shared our Interdisciplinary Report group assignments.  I especially found the biomedical engineering presentation interesting because it combined aspects from many of the other presentations involving both engineering and medicine.  I think that my group's presentation went well. Although it seemed a bit shorter compared to the other presentations, we still managed to answer all the questions that were asked in the assignment.  I found this assignment to be a bit difficult because my group had such a varied and wide array of majors, as opposed to some of the other groups that had everyone with the same majors or very similar majors.  At the end of class Prof. Christopher gave each of us a personality test to help determine effective groups for upcoming group assignments.  I am curious to see how these results will turn out at our next class.  Also at the end of class, Prof. Russell asked us to come up with a mission statement for our major and underline three words that we think are the most significant.  For a paralegal I believe a good mission statement would be:  While also doing substantive legal work, as is their definition, paralegals take on the duty of drafting and submitting legal documents and evidence to assist lawyers in upholding the principles of justice within our community through the use of the law and courts. 9/18/14

8. Eighth Class Entry 9/18/14: Today in class we talked about gamestorming and ways of thinking that closely resemble play.  One of the key terms that we talked about from the Gray reading was fire-starting, which is saying or doing something that inspires others to think.  Another key term we discussed was artifacts, which are usually little or portable objects that store information.  The most common example of artifacts that was discussed in the reading and in class was sticky notes.  The last terms that were discussed were node generation and node selection.  A node is any artifact that is part of a bigger system.  Node generation is coming up with new artifacts while node selection is sorting those new nodes into different categories.  After the discussion we all were divided into groups and played a game using these principles.  Our fire-starter was that each of our groups was stranded on a desert island and we had to use our disciplines to get off the island and survive.  Instead of focusing on disciplines first, my groups focused on ways to get off the island, the materials we had on the island, and what we could make with the materials we had.  After we decided all of those, we then made a chronological plan of what we would do to actually get off the island.  We had generated many nodes (and

made many artifacts) and then selected how we were going to organize them.  Although other groups had more creative ideas, we were the only group that had used transdisciplinary thinking to solve the problem. 9/23/14

9. Ninth Class Entry 9/23/14: In today’s class we focused more on gamestorming.  After everyone arrived, Prof. Russell gave us one of the pages from the reading that had a series of simple symbols on it.  He then challenged us to draw what we did over the weekend only using these symbols.  In my drawing I included sleeping, going to the library, doing homework, going to my job interview, and watching TV.  We then passed our drawings to the person to our left and they guessed what each of our drawings depicted.  This exercise was the warm-up for our next activity, which was using the given symbols to describe a process.  My group was given the process of preparing to tailgate at the football game.  Other processes that were given to the different groups included the colors of the leaves changing, preparing for a first date, and what President Ono does on Sunday morning.  The purpose of both of these exercises was to force us to be creative and convey our ideas to other people.  After both of these activities, we had a quick reading discussion competition abut our reading from the book Outliers.  Once again I was on the evaluating team.  The questions focused mainly on the 10,000-hour rule, which is that if anyone practices anything for 10,000 hours they will become a master at whatever they so choose to do.  I specifically found the question relating the 10,000-hour rule to the American Dream to be interesting, along with each groups answer to the question. 9/25/14

10. Tenth Class Entry 9/25/14: Today in class we began by discussing the key points from last class’s Von Oech reading with Prof. Russell.  From chapter four we discussed how everyone has a conflict between their inner judge and inner artist and not too evaluate ideas too quickly.  From chapter seven we discussed playing the fool and how coming up with ridiculous ideas at low points in brainstorming can reignite your creative process.  From chapter 8 we discussed the different types of ambiguous thinking, such as playing the oracle, using ideas as stepping-stones, and using paradoxes.  Prof. Russell also stressed the phrase, “Premature evaluation = Conception prevention.”  This means that you won’t be able to fully develop a new idea if you judge or evaluate the idea when you first think of it.  Prof. Russell also showed us some quotes from Yogi Berra to further expound on the idea of paradoxes being used to spark creative thinking.  After these discussions I competed in my first reading discussion competition that was based on our reading selections from Thaler’s Nudge.  The question I specifically worked on was defining the rule of thumb of availability, which is the availability or likelihood of risks.  My group came up short in the competition even after having better points than the other group because the other group had a more entertaining presentation.  We ended the class by watching a video from Nightline about the company IDEO that designs many different projects for various companies. 9/30/14

11. Eleventh Class Entry 9/30/14: Today in class we began by discussing the process of the scientific method.  After some discussion, Prof. Cory gave us his thoughts on the method by describing it as more of a sloppy web than a clear-cut process.  Sometimes in order to move from one step in the method you need to move backwards or look further ahead before going through an entire experiment.  We also discussed how many different experiments could come from one observation or one set of data.  This discussion led into talking about scientific thinking as a whole.  One step that is not explicitly in the scientific method is research, which we determined could have an element of thin-slicing, a more design thinking geared concept, depending on your observations.  We were then divided into teams for our reading discussion competition.  Key concepts included mechanisms of progress and design methods from our Gaver reading.  However, instead of discussing the key concepts of the reading, we had to apply the concepts to constructing what we thought the plan for Burnet Woods should be moving.  My group focused on a process which included bringing people into the park through an event, then surveying students through Blackboard, then compiling students’ ideas into an actionable plan, then gaining support and resources from various campus and community groups before renovating the park to complete the project.  The other group drew the park and made notes on various parts of their drawing on what they would like to change or renovate.  My group had a more scientific approach, whereas the other group had a more design-oriented approach. 10/2/14

12. Twelfth Class Entry 10/2/14: Today in class we had our first practice presentations.  We began with Prof. Russell telling us how we were going to be “graded.”  The three categories he was looking for were techniques, processes, and communication.  For each category we then went through as a class and identified what design and scientific strategies we have discussed throughout the course so far could be put into those three categories.  After discussing and sorting strategies, we were divided into groups of six and given the common task of what we should do first about Burnet Woods.  My group decided that first we need to get information from students through a survey.  About halfway through the exercise we were further split into groups of three and given a more specific task based on what we discussed in our groups of six.  My group of three focused on what questions to put on the survey.  We started by gathering demographic information then moved towards if they used the park and what they would like to get out of Burnet Woods.  After time was called, each group went around and presented their ideas.  Most groups had focused n the idea of a survey similar to our group but had different forms of advertising and reaching the students.  Prof. Russell said that the presentations overall weren’t bad but we still had a ways to go before we’re ready for primetime. 10/7/14

13. Thirteenth Class Entry 10/7/14: Today in class we focused on the process of reiteration, doing things over to better improve the process or come up with better ideas, which we had learned through our readings.  We were divided into the same groups of six that we

were in last week but each group was given a specific aspect of Burnet Woods that the professors thought were important.  These aspects were How, Awareness, Ask, and Observe.  My group of six was assigned to the Ask group.  Like last class, my group focused heavily on the survey idea.  However, we had a hard time debating what the survey should focus on.  We were not sure whether we should look for specific answers or general answers.  We were not sure whether to include everyone’s opinion or to limit the opinions to those who are actually aware of and use Burnet Woods.  We were also not sure if we should hand out the survey in person, either in classes or on Main Street, or if we should post the survey on Blackboard.  Eventually we were forced to split up into two groups of three and we divided ourselves again into one group for deciding how to distribute the survey and the other group into what to ask and who to ask on the survey.  I was in the “what to ask” and “who to ask” group and we came up with very similar ideas to what we decided last week.  Some of our new ideas that we came up with, with the help of Prof. Russell, were building a “survey army” to walk around campus to hand out the surveys in common areas and in classrooms, putting paper in toilet stalls so people could write down their opinions because so many people already write on the stall walls anyway, and also to ask alumni because in hindsight they probably have a better idea of what they would have liked to have in a park around campus. 10/14/14

14. Fourteenth Class Entry 10/14/14: We began today’s class by the professors making an idea map of what they have heard the class saying so far about our progress and project.  It started with asking if students are shareholders and then branched off to how to access information and opinions of informed and uninformed students in regards to Burnett Woods.  From this idea map, the class was split into four different groups to brainstorm how to get information from all students.  These groups were directly contacting the informed, not contacting the informed, directly contacting the uninformed, and not contacting the uninformed.  I was put in the last group, which was supposedly the hardest group, and some of our ideas for gathering information included researching others parks, researching how often the green spaces on campus are being used, researching how often the rec center is being used, researching how often students are going to campus events, researching what types of campus events students are going to, researching how often students are visiting restaurants off campus, and researching what restaurants students are visiting off campus.  We thought that all of this data would be easy to access by getting access to students’ Bearcat Cards and looking at where they were being used.  Some of our other wackier ideas included shooting students with GPS tracking darts from the top of Crosley Tower and asking the NSA to tap into students’ phone locations to see what areas around campus were being used the most by UC students.  At the end of class each group presented what they had come up with and different groups from the original four were made for our project groups.  These groups were Social Media, Direct Survey, Assembly, Raising Awareness, and No Contact (External Observations).  Each class

member then picked which group they wanted to be in with only about three students per group.  I selected to be in the No Contact group. 10/16/14

15. Fifteenth Class Entry 10/16/14: Today in class we began by dividing into our groups.  At this stage in the course we are now beginning our specific group tasks.  My group is made up of Austin Wessels, Lincoln Wassink, and me.  Both Austin and Lincoln are engineering majors, aerospace and mechanical respectively.  After exchanging phone numbers, we were given the task of coming up with a team name.  We came up with The Observationists, a riff off of The Mentalist TV show.  Some other names we thought of included The Observers and The Observing Ostriches.  We then got down to business and brainstormed ways that we could indirectly gather information about how often the park is used, basically through observing.  Along with the park itself, we decided that the green spaces on campus would also be a good place to gather information from since they are similar areas.  Our top three ideas included visiting all the green spaces and the park and simply counting how many people were there, setting up a camera in nearby buildings and using time lapse photography to get a general estimate of how many student use these spaces, and my personal favorite of setting up QR Codes in various spots in each of the locations.  Each time a code is scanned, we could program it to lead scanners to a site that would keep count of how many times the code is scanned.  Using this idea, we could also work with the survey group to have the code count how many times it has been scanned and direct students to that group’s survey.  We spoke to that group and they liked the idea.  We also spoke to the raising awareness group to see if they would like to put information on the site along with the survey and they said they would consider.  Also as a note to my last journal entry, I forgot to include the Community Engagement group, which was formed along with the others at the end of that class. 10/21/14

16. Sixteenth Class Entry 10/21/14: Today’s class began by brainstorming what steps we as a class should take as we approach forming our projects directly dealing with Burnet Woods.  The steps that we came up with were raising awareness, collecting data, and analyzing data.  We then went through each step and assigned which groups would be helping complete each step.  For raising awareness we decided that the assembly, social media, and event (raising awareness) groups would complete this step.  For collecting data we decided that the direct survey, my observation, and the community engagement (indirect survey) groups would complete this step.  For observations and community engagement we also discussed how both of these groups can gather internal information on campus as well as external information from the park itself and other community organizations in the area around campus.  For completing the last step, we decided as a class that we would all analyze our own group’s data if we had enough time in the semester to complete our projects.  We then as a class came up with an overarching goal, which is to capture UC students’ voices as stakeholders in Burnet Woods.  After this we split off into our groups and brainstormed more ideas, focusing largely on collaborating

with other groups.  My group is collaborating with the survey group, raising awareness/event group, and now the social media group.  The professors also came around and met with each group for a bit.  From Professor Christopher we played around with the idea of a photo contest that would tell us how many people are using the green spaces and the park and what they are doing there without having to include these questions in a survey.  This idea is a more fun and engaging way for students to give us information as opposed to us having to somehow get it from them.  This idea is what sparked our new collaboration with the social media group.  Professor Russell warned us of some possible pitfalls with the QR code idea such as lack of participation, possible need for incentive, and possible conflict with the parks organization that did not seem too fond of the idea.  However, he did like the time-lapse photography idea and helped us further explore and develop that option. 10/23/14

17. Seventeenth Class Entry 10/23/14: Today in class we were sent off into our groups to finish up our presentations and continue developing our project ideas.  My group started by first hammering out a timeline.  Our timeline is as follows: Week 1- Take hand notes at each time-lapse site to see which are the best spots to put cameras and make the QR code to link to Social Media’s website and Direct Survey’s Survey, Weeks 2-4- Gather time-lapse footage/data and survey response data, Week 5- Analyze all data and prepare for our final presentation and open house.  We then decided on an issue statement.  From the beginning we knew what our issue was but we had never put it down in writing.  Our issue is how do we best observe UC students and apply the data we obtain from observing them to Burnet Woods.  After setting both of those, we began to focus more closely on the execution of the time-lapse idea.  Originally we were thinking of renting out a camera from the library and leaving it in a place where it could gather footage on a green space for numerous days and then return the camera and analyze the footage.  However, Prof. Christopher had the idea of picking random hours of the day and only taking footage for one hour at a time.  This method would accomplish the same goal but it is much more manageable and less dependent on the libraries equipment.  We then picked which green spaces to observe, the list includes: McMicken Commons, Gettler Stadium, Sigma Sigma Commons, and Sheakley Lawn.  We also added the two entrances to Burnet Woods so that we could see out of how many people go into the park as opposed to simply walking by the entrances.  We began to discuss where we could put cameras to get good views of these sites when Prof. Christopher suggested that we ourselves just go to the site and sit there for an hour getting the footage as opposed to renting out, setting up, and then returning the equipment.  After this idea was proposed, Austin and I began to question the need for renting out cameras after we both realized that our phones had a time-lapse setting in their settings. 10/28/14

18. Eighteenth Class Entry 10/28/14: Today in class we began our group presentations.  We got through almost all of the groups.  The only two groups that have yet to present are the Event/Raising Awareness Group and the Direct Survey Group.  My group presented

somewhere in the middle of the pack.  I felt that our presentation overall went all right, it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either.  We covered all of our material in a reasonable time.  We may have been a bit short of the eight-minute mark the professors set for us.  I think we were closer to the six and half or seven minute mark.  However, we received more questions than I anticipated that we would, which probably exceeded the two minutes that the professors wanted us to leave for questions.  Many of the questions were about the effectiveness of the time-lapse camera idea.  Due to the worsening weather, many people raised concerns that not much applicable data would be obtained because of the coming dropping temperatures and lack of sunshine.  I still think that some useful data can be obtained from the idea and feel that since it does not require much out of class work the idea is still worthwhile.  After our presentation the professors asked why we were not pursuing the photo contest idea.  Originally we thought not much useful data could be obtained through a photo contest, but we will more than likely have some downtime in class that we could maybe pursue this idea in a joint venture with the Social Media Group.  After the presentations today we are going to get more one-on-one guidance from the professors so we’ll see what they have to say.  Also on a final side note, for the final presentation/open house I need to become more comfortable answering questions so I don’t have a repeat of the “through further research” dilemma. 10/30/14

19. Nineteenth Class Entry 10/30/14: Today in class we wrapped up the remaining presentations.  After that we were split up into our groups to work for the rest of the time we had left.  During this time Prof. Russell came over to our group to share his thoughts on our presentation and our projects moving forward.  About our presentation he said that we needed more visuals and more relevant case studies.  He said that these two additions would help us better convey our ideas to audiences.  About our project ideas he was still concerned about the time-lapse, or at least how we were planning on using the data we collected.  After some discussion we came to the conclusion that the time-lapse should be used to observe people’s activities, not how frequently the green spaces or parks are being used.  This came from the idea that people don’t necessarily know what they want, especially if we ask them what they want in a park that they have never been to.  By observing the activities they already do, we can make an educated guess as to what people may want in Burnet Woods without asking them.  We then moved on to discuss the QR code project.  Although he didn’t think our presentation was very good, Prof. Russell was happily surprised that the QR code was up and ready to go.  Although our presentation was a bit rough, we already have a working prototype, which some of the other groups don’t have yet.  We then explained the simple three-question survey that would accompany the code and that led to a discussion about incentive.  After throwing around the idea of a gift card, Prof. Russell told us about an idea he thought of from an NPR talk show.  When a caller calls the show, the talk show host records a custom voicemail box greeting for them.  As a group, we thought this would be a great idea if we were able to involve President Ono to record a similar greeting.  Prof. Russell told us he

likes the idea of the QR code because it causes students to reflect on what current activities they already do outside of a park that could apply to Burnet Woods.  Essentially, the students that scan the code are observing themselves for us.  At the end of class, the Community Engagement group came over and gave us the idea of looking at whether the rec center gains more attendance from people moving indoors for activities because of the worsening weather.  They were planning on getting attendance data form the rec center anyway and said that we could further collaborate with them if the idea interested us.  As a final note, at the end of class we discussed with Prof. Christopher about possibly moving forward the timeline to get the time-lapse videos done in a week or two so that we would have time to coordinate a photo contest with UC Forward.  He said that he and UC Forward would definitely be willing to support us if we choose to move up the timeline. 11/4/14

20. Twentieth Class Entry 11/4/14: Today in class we were given more time to work in our groups.  My group specifically began by establishing a new timeline.  With the remaining four weeks of the semester we designated different objectives for each week.  Next week we are hanging the QR codes and taking a headcount of how many people we observe in the green spaces and how many people we see scan the code.  The following week we will devote to taking all our time-lapse videos.  However, if we do not get a very high headcount while we our hanging the QR codes we will abandon the idea because it probably won’t yield the results we are hoping to get.  Prof. Christopher still likes the idea of having a time-lapse camera by the entrances of Burnet Woods so we may just have the QR codes gather data in the green spaces and use the time-lapse camera to gather data from the park itself.  With our third remaining week we will be setting up a photo contest with UC Forward.  The contest will be set up so that contestant must take their picture with the QR code and their group if they have one.  In their photo’s caption we will have them put what activity they are doing in the park and a hashtag so that we can easily monitor responses and choose the winners.  We have chosen to have three different contests for three different social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  The winners will be the top three pictures from each platform.  Lincoln will choose the winners for Facebook, Austin will choose the winners for Twitter, and I will choose the winners for Instagram.  For incentive we are planning on giving out gift cards.  The fourth and final week of the semester we are still leaving free to analyze data before the final presentation and open house.  Hopefully this will be our last revision of the timeline, which actually is not very different from our original timeline, and this new version will be effective in obtaining the information that we need.  We also played around more with the structure of the QR code and what all we can do in terms of organizing the data.  We learned that we could see who all has responded by viewing the individual IP addresses for each respondent’s device.  This will help us better be able to monitor duplicate responses.  We then spent the remainder of the class working with

Alex from the Social Media group trying to find a way to have our QR code survey redirect to the website Social Media has made upon completion of the survey. 11/6/14

21. Twenty-First Class Entry 11/6/14: Today in class we continued to work on our group projects.  Shortly after class began the Community Engagement group called us over to their table to look at the rec center attendance data that they had received.  The data that the rec center had given them was just for the 2013-2014 school year.  The data gave the number of students that had used their Bearcat Card to swipe into the rec center for each month.  Although we weren’t given a frequency of how much the rec center was being used by students, this data still give us a good idea of how many students use the rec center, even if they only us it once a month.  While looking at the data we noticed that there were three major drops in attendance.  The first was at the end of September, the second was around the middle of December, and the third was around the end of March.  Our guesses to explain these drops are that classes begin to get harder after September, winter break begins in the middle of December, and spring break begins in March.  However, there was a larger drop in March than there was in December.  Our thought is that the dropper is larger because along with students not being on campus during break, the weather outside is also getting better and these extra people that weren’t accounted for in the first drop may be using the green spaces and park for a new place to exercise.  After we looked at this data, we went back to our station and designed the flyer that we are using for the QR Code and the photo contest.  We decided to put both of our projects on the same flyer in hopes to boost student participation for both projects.  We also decided on an incentive.  The winning photo will get a $25 gift card to a restaurant of their choice.  After selecting winner, we will message them on whatever social platform they choose and ask what gift card they would like.  We asked Prof. Russell for his opinion on our flyer after we completed it.  He helped give us ideas to make the flyer look more eye-catching.  Hopefully we will get a good turnout of results in the next few weeks. 11/13/14

22. Twenty-Second Class Entry 11/13/14: Today in class we talked about posters. For our final presentation and for the open house each group will have to make two posters that explain our group’s purpose and what we did for our projects. To help us better visualize how our posters are supposed to turn out, Prof. Russell brought out the posters from last year. The main elements he stressed were visuals and visually presenting our thought process. He thinks that these are the most important because they draw people to your poster and give them the information they need to know in a quick and easily understandable way. After we finished talking about the posters, we were given some time to work in our groups. Prof. Russell came over to our group and gave us the scenario that we were hired by a company for our observation skills and that we would get fired if we didn't have anything his company could use. We then focused on brainstorming alternative ways to observe and if we don't end up getting any data, what does this lack of data mean? If we don't come up with any data some of the possible reasons we came up

with were that the weather had caused the window of opportunity to collect data to close, that QR codes are not an effective way to get college students opinions, and that maybe students don't really care what happens in the green spaces or the park. For an alternative way to gather data we thought of putting up similar flyers to the ones we've hung up in the green spaces in the rec center. Many of the people that use the green spaces to exercise go to the rec center during the winter months. If we put a flyer in the rec center appealing to this group of people, hopefully they will respond and give us some of the data we need. 11/18/14

23. Twenty-Third Class Entry 11/18/14: Today in class each group gave a five-minute presentation of a restatement of what our group’s goal is, what we are doing for our projects, and any results that we have.  Each group also added a brief description of what our posters will look like for our final presentation and open house.  After the presentations, Prof. Russell taught us what elements of a poster he thinks are the most important.  The points he stressed were to make the posters “sexy not texty (not too word),” to have a “money shot (eye-catching visual),” have a hierarchy of information, and to have organization.  For a hierarchy of info, Prof. Russell told us to organize information according to its importance through the use of size and color.  For organization, he told us to make a grid with equal spacing for all the elements.  For this he also said that symmetry was a good tool to use for organization.  As some other useful tips he told us to keep some white space to let the elements of the poster float around and fill in and to include an introduction for the class goals to help show how our projects relate to the class as a whole.  As to what we should put on our posters, Prof. Russell said to include our conjectures and thought process model, our case studies with photos (which need to be cited), our proposal and critical path, any prototypes we have, a description of our implementation, any analysis and quantification (without using bar graphs or pie charts), and a conclusion that can easily be drawn from our results.  With the exception of analysis and quantification, I think that our group has a pretty firm grasp on all of the other elements from our previous presentations and notes I’ve taken during classes.  I think that our QR code flyers will be a good example of a prototype and a visual.  We may need to find one more case study for each project but other than that I think that our group can make an interesting and effective poster even with our lack of results so far.  Hopefully by the end of the semester we will have some data to put on the posters. 11/20/14

24. Twenty-Fourth Class Entry 11/20/14: Today for class we met in Swift to work on our posters because there was an event planned in Niehoff Studios.  After some quick comments, Prof. Christopher gave us all the class time to work on our posters in our groups.  My group took the template and made it a Google presentation so that we could all edit the poster at the same time and would all have access to it after class.  We decided to use one poster to introduce readers to the class goal, our thought process, and case studies to support our ideas.  Our other poster will present readers with our results,

prototypes for the QR Code Survey (the flyers), and our conclusion.  For the layout of the posters we established how many elements we wanted to put on each based on the list Prof. Russell gave us at the end of class on Tuesday.  We then sectioned off the poster into about equal sections for our grid and put our information in.  Upon completion of the posters, I am proud of the way they turned out.  I think that they present our ideas very well and are eye catching.  Hopefully the professors will like them when they see them today and we will get a good grade on our draft poster assignment.  Also, while working Prof. Christopher came around to the groups and asked how we were doing.  After we told him we did not have any data of our own, he said that we could ask the Survey Group for some of the data that they received about the green spaces.  To add more analytical and quantitative data, we may ask them what all they have today in class. 11/25/14

25. Twenty-Fifth Class Entry 11/25/14 and Twenty-Sixth Class Entry 12/2/14: For this journal I am combining two classes into one so that it will be about the same length as my other entries.  On November 25th, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving Break, we shared the rough drafts of our posters.  This was made a bit more difficult due to technical difficulties but each group had the opportunity to display the drafts of their posters on the TV to the rest of the class.  After each group gave a quick walk-through of their posters, the other members of the class had the opportunity to offer constructive criticism.  Some of the constructive criticism that my group received was to add a few more pictures/graphics at the top to fill some space, explain our conjecture more thoroughly, and to reword some sections and headings.  Some suggestions that Prof. Christopher had were to even out the hierarchy of information in our results section, add in a section on the safety of the intersection for our time-lapse section, and to add in a section on how the QR codes were successful in a supporting role. 12/4/12

On December 2nd we started our final presentations.  Sitting in on the presentations was a member of the park board who was curious about our results.  The groups that presented included the Community Engagement Group, the Focus Group Group, and the Social Media Group.  I thought that all the presentations were very informative and well spoken.  This leaves the Direct Survey Group, the Raising Awareness Group, and my Observations Group.  This class began a little edgy because the submission of my group’s posters did not go through because of internet/Blackboard problems.  This news was doubling frustrating and stressful because the revisions I had made the night before submitting them did not save so we were forced to print out the rough drafts of our posters just in case we were forced to present today.  However, the Direct Survey Group had a similar issue so the professors were very understanding of the problem and let us resubmit the final posters as well as let me redo the revisions that had been lost.  Hopefully today’s presentations are less stressful and we have a good last class and Open House later! 12/4/14