Building Hope Wth Art, AR And Data - Get Students To Visualize Their Hopes For 2019

Source: Accurat

With so much turmoil this year across the political spectrum, with the upheaval in the economy, and with the constant headlines asking the question, "Why is there so much hate in society?," we found it hard at times to keep a positive attitude and neutral position in our classrooms. It's also no wonder that according to Google search trends for 2018, the world searched for "good" more than ever before; people needed something positive.



We did, too. We're sure that's why the "Building Hopes" visualization designed by Accurat caught our eye. It appeared on a list for top visualizations for 2018. This interactive visualizations lets users create "Hope Sculptures" by balancing rocks to represent the things that they are hopeful for. Ironically, the size and rotation of the rocks, including their direction and speed, are linked to Google Trends data on the topics that are chosen.

Source: Building Hopes

Source: Building Hopes

While the website lets you build "Hope Sculptures,” such as the images in this post, the mobile app, which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play, takes it to another level.

By walking closer toward the floating rocks, the topics appear for selection. The user needs to pick at least four in order to build and place his or her "Hope Sculpture." It can be placed down anywhere, such as the image at the beginning of this post.

There are ten different topics to choose from, and each rock can be weighted depending on how much hope there is for each one. They can be viewed by hopes or by topics, but what makes it even more interactive is how your hopes can be compared to others who participate in the project.

Once the sculpture is created, it can be used to access Google Trends data to see how people around the world are searching the same ideas, concepts, and movements. The size, rotation, direction and speed of the rocks represent different data trends.

Source: Building Hopes

We think letting students create their own hopes for 2019 would be an excellent way to begin the new year in our classrooms. Students can use this information to discover what others are hopeful for, and how passionately.

It provides an opportunity to think about what's important and to share ideas in an innovative way. It could be incorporated into classroom discussions or written reflections.

Hope is what we need for the future; it brings out the good in all of us.