Brain+Storming

Ideas posted above if you dont have them.
 * R**[[file:!deas.doc]]

Andrea: Ok guys, so i saved our final brainstorm and ideas to the computer at school and forgot to send myself the ideas! So i was going to expand on ideas from the list, but seeing i don't have the list im going by memory. If someone sees this could they please send me it?

My idea so i wont forget is to add a grocery store/little produce market booth like the ones on the streets downtown, to show the difference between organic produce and artificially enhanced crops, by showing the fruits or produce and comparing the pesticide use, pollution, chemical build up in the food chain etc. Also, maybe we can show litter on the street as pollution like thrown water bottle and coffee cups, and then have a recycling bin nearby to show how they can be reused to create other products to add to the idea of taking one item and it becoming another

Craig: I'm slightly confused on what exactly we're going to portray. An ugly non-environmentally friendly street? Or a clean one? Or both (but i dont know how that will work)

Oh i just thought of something, what if we put the same buildings on both sides of the street, except one side is the clean and the other is the sucky polluted one? i know that will double the amount of work (in a way)...but one side shows what we can do to help clean up and the other shows what is happening now (pollution etc.) in a sense it doesnt really double the work, we're just separating it into two parts.

as for ideas for buildings/structures there is...the apartment, restaurant, grocery store, factory, ttc bus, park, business building ....i'll post up the !deas page.

Nikki:


 * Adding on to Craig's idea, which I LOVE:**

The "ugly non-environmentally friendly street" can be a typical street in Toronto; the eco-friendly street can be the Queen street...street.

I was also thinking that maybe the maze could be in the home with questions regarding the things we do...at home!

I posted a link up on the Research page about some sick eco-friendly inventions. Got me thinking that we should do some sort of tribute to some crazy idea's people have been coming up with now. It's inspiring and motivational. =D It kinda of gives you another alternative to just the 5R's, especially for those super creative kids.


 * Variation:**

If we have, for example, the "House" that is separated in two parts by Plexiglas so that one side is eco-friendly and can easily be compared to the other side which is not.

Craig: ahh i get it, so in nikki's variation, instead of the bad being across the street, we simply put the bad and the good in the same building, but divided

Hasnain: So I like the idea of one side bad one side good. I think it could be good if we just had one bad side that way that side could be filled with garbage on the ground nn the other side would be clean. Also I'm trying to think of somewhere we can put that Greenhouse Gases idea of mine...the one with the balls being trapped inside a box...unless what we could do is have a minuature version of it inside one of the places...like ..i dunno a museum? ...library? ...school:P

Also we could still incorporate our ideas about the ecological footprint..put foot steps leading people though the street....and maybe at the end of the street we should have one big exhibit...but i dunno what? ... maybe something to do with finding the how much the visitors have an impact on the earth (eco footprint) ...like what if it was some room that had glass walls nn it was a computer with a big screen..or like a projector and then the visitor answers questions nn just for fun they would scan their hand on the pad nn then the computer would output a message of what their eco footprint is and something like " You Need to Care For The Environment More!" :P with an angry face lol:P nn the lights in the room would flash red, yellow or green based on how bad they are..

Craig: I love the link hasnain it gives good info about materials that can be used to build the exhibit i also love the footprint idea, but i think we can expand on that even more about the greenhouse gases, i was thinking of putting it in a park, cuz it's "outside". only problem with that is that there needs to be walls to prevent the balls from flying all over the place. also for the last exhibit, i was also thinking it would be appropriate for visitors to test their eco footprint on a computer, but i'm also hoping we can somehow stick that maze idea in too...maybe before they reach the computers?

Hyder: Im luving these ideas so far.. What I think we could add are 'benches' on the side of the street that have solar panels, so they provide free renewable energy for laptops instead of having energy-consuming internet cafes. Something like this --> [|pic]. And what happened to the maze? Are we still having that? Since we want to make the buildings as eco friendly as we can, we can include 'smart systems' for e.g. the air conditioning system draws its air from outside, then through the ground, and goes into the building. This results in the air having to be cooled much less since it loses its heat as it passes underground. Same for heating, the air warms up as it passes underground so less energy is wasted in heating it. For parents, we could have a doctor's lounge where we post info on the ecological footprint of an entire person's lifetime, representing how much they damage the earth when they decide to have many children. Basically, the environment should also be a factor in family planning. So i'll cyu guys at school tom. peace xD

Andrea:

Basically I think that we should have some "dirty" aspects in the exhibition but only when needed, like to show pollution, waste etc. so maybe a relatively realistic street, not squeaky clean but not filthy, showing aspects of both the current and green ways to live

As for a "theme" i think we should stick with the concept of bringing it back to you, displaying ways we can change our lifestyle to incease the sustainability of the envoronment. Especially for the little ones, i think portraying little things they can do like turn the tap off when brushing their teeth and little differences like that which can add up to make a difference. The "dirty" aspects of the street can focus on the things we do that aren't environmentally friendly, because the way we live now is not sustainable. Then the green aspoects of our exhibition show what can be done to change the current sustainability of our planet. This way we can incorporate all of our ideas, showing our past mistakes and changes we can make for the future.

Monica:

Heyy k sry for the late checkup i didn't know we had to check this thing daily and if anyone knows a way of getting notified whenever this wiki gets updated that would help alott (4 all of us i think) :). so anywayy i took the time to read all your comments so heres mine:

k so Andrew umm i liked you organic food idea thing cuz obviously organic is way healthier and less chemicals are used but i dont think we should completely discriminate the chemically made foods too cuz sometimes those help preserve the food and make them last longer which is sometimes really important to have so that ppl dont keep throwin out there stuff like everyday and also for foodbanks and stuff they always want the stuff that doesnt expire (which isnt organic) so wat im basically saying is that we should encourage the whole buy more organic foods but we have to make sure were not exactly replacing other types of foods completely either. unless thats wat u meant then siick:)

oh and the litter thing too is good cuz realistically there is always garbage everywhere we go. like we shouldnt put too much but a realistic amount (like andrea said in her last comment.. making things more realistic not extremes) thats one idea..

um for craigs thing about having the two sides of the streets showing good or bad i think that would like make ppl want to go to one side more than the other.. nikki's idea is pretty good but i was also thinking (just an idea) that we could have like the normal realistic (somewhat polluted) street on both sides like an actual street looks like and then have doors or portal thingies or watev for like each of the parts were doing like buildings, malls, restaurant, public transit (going into the actual bus), etc.. and the ppl when they go in and its like the see what the eco-city would look like and we could have like those random paper information things they usually have at exhibits and it would explain the difference and give the brief facts on like why the current thing looks the way it is and how we could improve it (things we could change - so like if its a house the toilets that save water etc).

also on hasnains idea about the one big exhibit at the end of the street i was thinking we could have like computers that have tests on your ecological footprint and in FRONT of it would be like a powerpoint thing with benches and stuff and a person would be talking and thats where we could refer to movies, things in past, show facts, get ppl to volunteer, etc. and the whole msg thing is cute hasnain but i think they need something a bit more scientific like ACTUAL results lol.. but heyy instead of having an adult section (hyders idea) we could have a section for younger kids and they could have like colourful stuff and thats where we could put hasnains message lol. and that could be at like the park thing and we can be like if they wanna keep their parks clean and fun, they should take care of it and keep it clean idunno well something that sounds better lol. cuz 4 the whole park idea we cant really use it to show it as something that can be changed so i guess it can be like the one "good" thing and ironically its a childrens place and adults are usually the ones who pollute and are careless and stuff

and i like the flashin lights hasnain was talkin about we can have the with the eco. footprints but maybe we could use those swirly light bulbs to show that were saving the environment even in our exhibit:)

k back to hyders thing, i think the ecological footprint of the persons lifetime should just be a personal thing at the end when they each check their own footprint cuz if u think about it everyones footprint changes and having ppl come to the science centre from diff places there can be huge variances of it so we cant just generalize to just one person cuz it doesnt always relate to everyone (PS. sry if this is longg)

oh and btw.. 2moro im going downtown at lunch so ill be trying to take more inspiring pictures of different cool looking streets that we can use :)

Andrea:

Ok here are my ideas so far for what to do in each individual building:
 * Office** - promote using LED lights, turning building lights off at night, using the big plug with the power switch (i dont know what the official term for it is but you know what i mean right?) so that the computers etc. don't waste energy when turned off, using more efiicient air conditioning systems (i think hyder had some stuff about that) or even just turning the AC/heating by a few degrees to reduce the amount of energy needed to fuel it, green roofs (i think we can find some cool pictures of them and post stats on how much enerrgy they conserve or something)
 * Factory** - have a button that when pressed shoots out a puff of fog (supposed to be smoke from emissions) similar to the sneeze in human body, and showing that each day on average a factory will emit 2329487 X that amount of smoke... get it? itll basically exemplify the ridiculous amount of emissions from factories and how they contribute to greenhouse gases too
 * Grocery Store** - Monica i totally agree with you, we can't replace evrything with organic food, but in the produce section of the store we can promote it by saying how organic food does not use pesticides that pollute land and water, as well as build up in the food chain by being passed up the trophic levels during consumption
 * Clothing Store** - promote the concept of reuseable and recycled bags, so i think this would be a good place to show the exhibit idea where we show the steps of how a water bottle can be recycled into a reuseable bag, also along with the clothing maybe we can have an organic fabric guessing game where the fabrics are all in cut pieces or stretched out in squares and the organic and eco-friendly ones are compared to the man-made ones, showing how environmentally clothing is just as great as the regular stuff! lol

Hyder :

I was thinking we should have a fish tank representing our oceans. BUT* instead of real fish, it would have plastics in the shape of fish. What I mean is we could have a plastic water bottle in the shape of a fish and say "new 21st century fish created by man, this is what fills our oceans now", the tag could also read something like "new species, origin: petroleum, life expentancy: 300 years [length it would take to decompose], prey: tiny fish that suffocate on the plastic. As far as the other ideas are concerned, I love them, I think you guys are all doing a great job. (=