2050 looks like:

• Utilizing more spaces for nature

• Bringing more nature to everyone’s daily lives

• The environment is in the forefront of everyone mind.

• Cultivating a lifelong appreciation and relationship with nature from a young age through increased environmental learning in K-12 education.

• Design, urban planning, individual action all revolves around making the best decision to ensure sustainability and community well being.

Climate change is a direct threat to the health of forests and all communities in the PNW will feel the effects by 2050, it is up to all of us to combat these and protect the forests that protect us.

The Project

As part of a directed research group in the University of Washington’s HCDE program, my team and I conducted in-depth research to develop a 50-year vision for an environmental organization called Forest Health Watch.

Forest Health Watch (FHW) is a local Pacific Northwest organization dedicated to protecting our forests through community action. With climate change posing an increasing threat, their work has never been more critical.

In this project, my goal was to understand how to better engage the community in forest conservation. One key question guided my research: Why is community engagement so difficult? The answers were revealing—economic disparities, a lack of awareness, and a weakening connection to nature all stood out as major barriers.

If we hope to protect our forests, we must first bridge these gaps, making conservation more accessible and meaningful for everyone.

Transition Design

The underlying goal of this project was learning to research using the Transition Design framework— a transdisciplinary approach to tackling complex societal challenges and method of design thinking.

Learning this framework was a shaping moment for me as a researcher and designer, it takes a step further than typical design thinking. In all my work I use this type of thinking to be more conscience of sustainabilty and the systems I am designing into.

The Strategy

To identify solutions and support the organization, my team conducted thorough research using holistic methods to fully grasp the complexity of the problem. We also facilitated a co-design session with 10 students, allowing us to test theories, gain insights from human experiences, and incorporate diverse perspectives.

Research Methods

STEEP Analysis

Signals, Trends, and Drivers

Codesign Session

Defining the Problem

Through extensive research on forest health and community action, our team identified a Wicked Problem—a complex issue with no clear solution due to evolving, contradictory, and interdependent factors.

Our goal was to define a clear direction for Forest Health Watch to work toward in the near future. Drawing from our research, we framed the central challenge they must address:

"Integrating diverse local communities into sustainable forest management to bolster resilience against climate change impacts, ensuring both the preservation of biodiversity and the enhancement of ecosystem services vital for global environmental health and community well-being."

This definition served as our guiding question as we envisioned the state of forest conservation in 2050. By understanding these barriers, we aimed to craft a vision where community engagement becomes a driving force in protecting our forests for generations to come.

Recommendations

To wrap up the research portion of this project I finally defined the vision for the future that Forest Health Watch should work in the present to acheive.

The Vision:

"Integrating local communities into sustainable forest management enhance resilience to climate change, preserves biodiversity, and improves ecosystem services. In 50 years this community action will be second nature, the environment will be an integral part of all aspects of life, from design, to urban planning, so that all actions revolve around making sustainable decisions that benefit the community."

Climate change poses a direct threat to the health of our forests, and by 2050, every community in the Pacific Northwest will feel its effects. Protecting our forests isn’t just an environmental responsibility—it’s a necessity for our own survival.

Through our STEEP analysis, we identified key challenges, including diminishing biodiversity, tree diseases, and unequal access to nature. The solution? Fostering a mutually beneficial relationship between communities and forests—one where people are empowered to protect the landscapes that sustain them.

The environment is something we all share. Our co-design session provided students with a space to discuss their experiences with nature, their fears for the future, and ways to take action. Watching these conversations unfold was heartwarming—and it reinforced a crucial truth: Engaged communities are built through ongoing environmental education and shared dialogue. By educating youth and continually involving communities in environmental learning, we create a foundation for long-term, sustainable pro-forest behaviors.

Widespread awareness of the threats facing our forests—and with them, our economy, well-being, and quality of life—is essential. If more people truly understood the value of these spaces and felt a deeper connection to both nature and their neighbors, they would be far more willing to fight for them while we still have the chance.

The vision for 2050 must be one where thriving forests still exist—but achieving that future depends on the actions we take today.

STEEP Analysis: A holistic way to research

Researching through the lenses of Society, Technology, Environmental, Economic, Political factors.

As part of the transition design framework, the first step in research is to develop a deep, multi-dimensional understanding of the problem—considering the many complex factors that shape any given situation. My research involved combing through various sources, particularly the Forest Health Watch website, which is rich with information on forest health and community engagement. Using affinity mapping, we categorized key signals into five major areas: Societal, Technological, Environmental, Economic, and Political. This method allowed me to apply systems thinking and analyze the many interconnected layers of society.

To better understand Forest Health Watch’s current challenges, we gathered and sorted key pieces of evidence from a range of sources. Each signal was classified within the STEEP framework (Socio-cultural, Technological, Environmental, Economic, and Political) and collaboratively organized into an affinity map. This highly interactive process encouraged discussion, ensuring that every signal was carefully considered before placement.

This was a very collaborative team and we discussed each symbol before adding to the affinity map. In this group I was focused on learning from my peers as it was an early step in my HCDE career. My work centered on Forest Health Watch’s initiatives, exploring economic and social disparities in access to trees, advancements in biosurveillance technology, and pressing environmental threats to forests. Through this process, I gained valuable insight into the intersection of environmental conservation, technology, and community engagement as well as learning how to research effectively and collaborate with a team.

Editing Content

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Adding Content to the Canvas

After setting up the content, go back to the canvas. Your collections are accessible from the Insert menu. Open the Insert menu, navigate to the CMS Content section, and drag and drop your collection onto the canvas. This will add a special stack with layers connected to your data. From here, you can edit the visual properties on the right, just as you would do with a regular Stack.

Add a Page with Content

If you wish to add a page instead that will automatically be populated with data from the CMS, navigate to the left panel. One you are in the Pages tab, click on the + button next to the CMS section. If you add the Index page, a page will be added with a list of all of the items in your collection. If you add the Detail page, you will be presented with a page with content from your individual items.

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The detail page will display content pulled from the first entry of the collection by default. In order to preview other items in the collection, change the content by selecting a different item from the dropdown menu.