An illustration about global
warming for children
Gözde Menemenlioğlu
Course Coordinator: Alessandro Segalini
IZMIR UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS, FACULTY OF FINE ARTS AND DESIGN
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION DESIGN
SPRING 2009, GD494
INTRODUCTION
Global warming is one of the major environmental issues the world is facing
today.
In my thesis, I will explain what global warming is, analyze the state of
children’s awareness according to the questionnaire I made and study graphic
design and illustrations for children. We get more and more news about global warming and climate changes on media channels. In the last 10-15 years climate changes have given profound signals regarding the future of humanity.
Global warming has already started to be a threatening issue like “pollution” as
an important environmental topic. Thunder storms, high temperatures, melting ice mountains, drought all play important roles in explaining the depth
of the problem we are facing today. A number of advertisement campaigns,
seminars and educational conferences have been organized throughout the
country and around the globe. I believe that creating public awareness needs
to be taken as a key priority in order to resolve this serious problem. Creating
public awareness needs to start through childhood years; our kids at primary
schools need to be educated on diverse topics such as climate changes, pollution, factors leading to pollution and global warming.
However, waste materials, limited water resources, energy and harmful
gases are distinguished better by kids. The sufficient education of children
regarding these topics must be our primary goal. The results and the evaluation I have gathered from the questionnaire for kids were the reasons that
led me to write scenario for this project. I have applied the first questionnaire
for initial assessment in two different primary schools. Children have some
concept figurations and perceptions regarding topics such as waste materials,
pollution and global warming. My objective in doing this project is to correct those wrong perceptions and emphasize correct visuals regarding these
topics. I hope to reach this objective through making illustrations combining
children’s thoughts and solid global warming figures. Characters like heroes
and their colors, shapes, images take an important place for their comprehensive perception.
Finally, this thesis helps to strengthen their visuals and increase their
enthusiasm for learning to change their perceptions of looking at consumption habits and global warming.
08-09 GD494 GRADUATION THESIS 2
CONTENTS
i
INTRODUCTION
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
3
1. WHAT GLOBAL WARMING IS
4
2. GRAPHIC DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATION CHILDREN
4
2.1. Typeface and Layout
5
2.2. Children and Art
7
2.3. Cognitive Develoment of Children
9
3. QUESTIONNAIRE FOR CHILDREN ON GLOBAL WARMING
9
3.1. What Children Know on Global Warming Today
10
3.2. Awareness of Children on Global Warming
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
08-09 GD494 GRADUATION THESIS 3
1. WHAT GLOBAL WARMING IS
Global warming is a widely use term describing a potentially dramatic rise “in
the annual average global surface temperature of the Earth”. It is estimated
that the average temperature will increase from 1.5 to 4 degree celcius as a
consequence of global warming. (fig. 1) If this sort of a temperature rise occurs, dramatic climate changes will be expected. A warmer world would give
way to rainfall, rise in sea level and a wide range of impacts on plants, wildlife
and humans. Consequently several natural catastrophes might occur, which
might also cause extinction of certain species, including human beings.
There are several observational evidence for global warming in the last
thirty years. In early1980s, global warming has come to a level that the world’s
governments decided to take some monitoring action on this issue. For example, in 1988 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)1 has
been set up to gather scientific information about global warming and also
to suggest response strategies. In the reports generated by IPCC, much of
the evidence supporting the claim that global warming will occur gave rise to
development of model evidence for global warming, such as computer based
climate models.
Through these models, several institutions have been working on the
possible impacts of the future climate change, as well as the options for
change. These change options include models concerning health, agriculture, ecosystems, as well as models for adaptation, limiting the damage, etc.
To sum up, all these models are developed, since expert scientists argue that
technologically advanced societies are not immune to the changes that will
be brought by global warming. Thus, it is argued that individuals should be
informed about and should learn to develop a social awareness on this issue
across and within societies.
Fig. 1. Global Warming
1. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) is a scientific intergovernmental body tasked to evaluate the
risk of climate change caused by human activity. The panel was established
in 1988 by the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),
two organizations of the United Nations. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel
Peace Prize with former Vice President
of the United States Al Gore.
Consequently, these intergovernmental policies on creating a social
awareness on global warming have been carried on successfully for several
years now. However, there has been almost no institution or social policies
regarding creating this social awareness, starting from early years in life. By
realizing this lack of policy on creating social awareness on global warming
in children, we have decided to focus on the ways of creating a level of social
awareness in primary school children.
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Therefore, we will examine the relation among arts, children and their developmental stages, and theorize on the ways to help them develop this awareness through design and illustrating in this thesis study.
2. GRAPHIC DESIGN AND
ILLUSTRATION FOR CHILDREN
2.1 TYPEFACE AND LAYOUT
2. Old style or humanist typefaces date
back to 1465, and are characterized
by a diagonal stress (the thinnest parts
of letters are at an angle rather than at
the top and bottom), subtle differences
between thick and thin lines (low line
contrast), and excellent readability. Old
style typefaces are reminiscent of the
humanist calligraphy from which their
forms were derived.
Page layout affects the reader in many ways. Any printed material provides
the public with their first view of the design. Therefore, it should strike the
public not only content-wise but also visually. Page layout production involves certain production parameters. Some of these parameters regarding
printing quality can be the number inks available or the stock being printed
on. Besides, one of the most important factors that plays role in affecting public are typeface and layout. Different typeface and layout affect children as
well as adults. Thus, a designer should know and understand children’s tastes
and expectations.
Generally, choosing font styles for your book is very important for both
the aspect and transferring files for printing. The most classic fonts used for
books are the Oldstyle2 fonts, as they are easily readable for large body copy.
Among the most classics are Times Roman, Goudy, Garamond, and Baskerville. In addition, designers should remember to choose a contrasting font
for their headings. A sans serif font such as Arial is a classic choice, since it
can be read easily. A sans serif font is one without the “hooks” at the ends of
each letter. These “hooks” help show a way the children’s eye from one letter
to another making the text easily readable. This is why sans serif fonts such
as Arial should never be used for the main body of the text. Children’s books
are commonly set in a slice of serif font, because of their clean straight lines.
Some common Slice serif fonts are New Century Schoolbook, Classic SSK,
and Clarendon.
Designers choosing typeface and layout for designs that are created for
children should consider children’s cognitive and perceptual capabilities as
well as their lack of experience in reading. Children learn to read letter-by-letter, they combine sounds with shapes and images until they can blend them
together to form words. That’s why new readers follow on slowly. The shoots
at new readers should be supported through making the text use attractive,
easy-to-read typefaces, and setting the text in the most readable way. Legibility is one of the main parts of children’s reading. When selecting a typeface
for a children’s text, we should look for a warm, friendly, shiny and colorful
designs with simple, generous letter shapes. The counters, which are the enclosed shapes within characters, should be rounded and open, not angular or
rectangular. Non-traditional letterforms should also be avoided.
Typefaces with bigger word heights are generally easier to read than
those with short word heights, and this is especially true for children. For
very young readers, designers should select designs with one-story ‘a’s and ‘g’s
, which are also called in font characters, since these are the lowercase shapes
preschool and school-age children learn to write.
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Both the serifed Bembo Schoolbook and Plantin Schoolbook, as well as Gill
Schoolbook, a sans serif style, have been designed for children. Making the
text readable have some steps like new readers have to learn to follow words
from left to right and “jump” their eyes from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. To make this easier and readable, designers should set the
text large like14 to 24 point depending on the typeface and age of the children. They should also set the text very generously by using leading like 4 to
6 points. Designers should keep line lengths short, and not put too much text
on a page. Thick blocks of type can be very minatory to children. Therefore,
designers should avoid all cap settings, which are difficult for readers of any
age.
Finally, designers should make sure there is an ample contrast between
the type and the background. This is especially true when setting light type
against a dark background (this is very common in heavily illustrated children’s books). When setting more than one paragraph on a page, designers
should consider using line-spaces instead of indents to separate paragraphs.
This gives the text and the reader a visual break. Headline or title type gives
the designers the opportunity to be more playful in style, color and layout,
since there are fewer words to read. Decorated typestyles, lots of color, and
curved and jumping baselines can all be used to attract and entertain the
young reader. Keeping it light and fun is the key to keeping a young reader
interested.
2.2 CHILDREN AND ART
Various branches of arts constitute an important tool showing children’s perception on external world. Specifically art helps children to reflect their own
understanding about the world. Studies on primary school children demonstrate that art is an important tool in order to inspire children’s imagination
and perceptions on creativity. (fig. 2) On another note, studies on brain development of children show that children are sensitive to artistic stimulation
and the influences of this stimulation is long lasting, since the connections
among neurons in the developing brain of children lay a creative pattern for
future learning (Kail, 2008). Thus, if and when arts are ignored during childhood stages, a unique opportunity may be lost in terms of creativity development. Moreover, these findings show us that aspect of creativity in children’s
learning gives us a specific opportunity in order to teach important topics,
such as global warming, to them effectively.
Fig. 2. Children and Art
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2.3. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN
5. Sir Jean Jacques Piaget was a Swiss
philosopher and natural scientist, and
is well known for his work studying
children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view is together called “genetic epistemology.”
6. The Sensorimotor Stage is the first of
the four stages of cognitive development. “In this stage, infants construct
an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences (such
as seeing and hearing) with physical,
motoric actions.” “Infants gain knowledge of the world from the physical
actions they perform on it.” “An infant
progresses from reflexive, instinctual
action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought toward the end of the
stage.”
7. The Preoperational stage is the second
of four stages of cognitive development. By observing sequences of play,
Piaget was able to demonstrate that
towards the end of the second year, a
qualitatively new kind of psychological
functioning occurs.
This thesis mainly concerns developing a social awareness in children of ages
9 and 11, on global warming. In order to help children to develop this kind of
social awareness, as designers, first we should know and anticipate the cognitive and perceptual capabilities of children in those age groups.
Developmentally, cognitive development is much more adult-like and
much less child-like during early elementary stage (Jean Piaget, 1970)5. Jean
Piaget is known to be the profound researcher who impacted every aspect
of child development research. He has defined four stages of cognitive development as “sensorimotor”6, “pre-operational”7, “concrete operational”8 and
“formal operational”9. Briefly, the characteristics of the sensorimotor stage is
that the infant’s knowledge of the world is based on senses and motor skills.
The infant uses mental representations and understands object permanence
by the end of the period ,which is 2 years. In preoperational period, which
lasts 2 to 6 years, child learns how to use symbols such as words and numbers to represent aspects of the world but relates to the world only through
his or her own perspective. During the concrete operational stage, which is
between 7 to 11 years, the child understands and applies logical operations to
experiences, given the fact that they are focused on the here and now. In the
last stage which is called formal operational (from adolescence and beyond),
adolescent children think abstractly, speculate on hypothetical situations and
reasons about what may be possible using deductive reasoning.
We focus on two different age groups in this study; 9 and 11 year olds.
(fig. 4) According to Jean Piaget’s theory on cognitive development, children’s thinking, perception, and reasoning capabilities demonstrate a dramatic shift during concrete operational stage. In children from 7-11 years, which
is called concrete operational stage, “mental” operations are used for problem
solving and reasoning. Some operations that are used by operational children
are addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Concrete operational
thinking is more powerful than the previous stage, which is preoperational
thinking, in the sense that preoperational children are egocentric, thinking
that others see the world as they do. One limitation to concrete operational
thinking is that it does not favor abstract thinking, focusing only on tangible,
concrete data. This limitation to abstract thinking disappears during formal
operational stage.
8. The Concrete operational stage is the
third of four stages of cognitive development in Piaget’s theory. This stage,
which follows the Preoperational stage,
occurs between the ages of 7 and 11
years and is characterized by the appropriate use of logic.
9. The formal operational period is the
fourth and final of the periods of cognitive development in Piaget’s theory.
This stage, which follows the Concrete
Operational stage, commences at
around 11–15 years of age (puberty)
and continues into adulthood. In this
stage, individuals move beyond concrete experiences and begin to think
abstractly, reason logically and draw
conclusions from the information available, as well as apply all these processes to hypothetical situations.
Fig. 4. Children Develoment
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Unfortunately, by the age of seven or eight, which is referred as the magic
years or the development for child art, children mostly lose spontaneity and
artistic creativity. However, art and design play a salient role in development
of emotional and aesthetic life of children and thus it should be supported by
adults who are educators. Art and design constitute a form of communication
for children. Child psychologists and experts argue that visual arts are important and valuable, since they help reflecting presented content all at once,
in an unprecendented manner. Through this, composition, shape, color, and
relationships are presented to the viewer.
Primary school age children become capable of integrating the parts of
the perceived objects. However, the lines they draw are mostly in a schema3
pattern. For instance, in a figure representing a human being, the head is
shown as a circle, the arms and legs are shown by two vertical and horizontal
lines. This stage of symbolic representation is called “stage of knowing”. During the ages of 9 to 11, children reach the stage of “objective realism”. İn this
stage, the schema pattern disappears, and instead, with objects and figures
the details of personality are provided. Children become capable of understanding and perceiving the third dimension of the objects around this age.
(fig. 3) The sequence of the objects are represented within the same plan by
children. At the same time, children become capable of understanding the
relation among different plans following each other.
Fig. 3. Children and Art
3. An image schema is a recurring structure within our cognitive processes
which establishes patterns of understanding and reasoning. Image scemas
are formed from our bodily interactions, from linguistic experience, and
from historical context.
4. The International Child Art Foundation
was founded in April 1997 to serve as
the national art and creativity organization for American children and the
international arts organization for the
world’s children.
Finally, International Child Art Foundation (ICAF)4 state that:
“Through artworks, children show their preferences and attitudes,
which in turn reflect their values and those of their societies. This load of art
is instrumental for ICAF1 because of the foundations objective to promote
global communication among childrens of all cultures through the universal language of art and design. ICAF is aware that a proactively art-rich life
is even more important today because children are influenced by high-tech
graphics and special effects on television and websites and in movies and
computer games.
We can conclude that art is an important tool in children’s life to foster
their cognitive capabilities. We, as designers, should consider characteristics
of children’s perception and cognitive abilities, in order to use art as an effective tool in their learning.
08-09 GD494 GRADUATION THESIS 8
Formal operational stage extends from 11 to adulthood years, involves
thinking that is more abstract like “what might be” and “what could be”.
Questions like “what if men gave birth?” or “what if kids become teachers at
school?” would confuse concrete operational children, however these same
questions lead to hypothetical reasoning and deductive reasoning for formal
operational adolescents.
Within the light of literature on cognitive development in children, we
can say that our two groups of children (9 and 11 years olds) are within the
same developmental stage. (fig. 5) Therefore, we as designers should consider that they have specific perception and understanding when they learn
something new. Thus, we should develop our designs in accordance with the
developmental characteristics of this age range.
Fig. 5. Children Develoment
Research on concrete operational stage children can be shown as an example for the necessity of using a specific form of arts in teaching to these age
groups. The following statements reveal the importance of child art:
- Child art has the power to improve academic performance by enticing students into the learning process because confidence and recognition achieved
in art are reflected in other subject areas.
- Child art leads to good work habits because painting and drawing involve
concentration and cultivate self-discipline.
- Child art involves creative discovery and self-expression because students
learn how to address problems in innovative ways.
- Child art lets adults know how children are growing, intellectually and emotionally.
- Child art helps students understand their own as well as other cultures.
- Children’s art makes free time enjoyable and meaningful for students.
Within the light of literature on children’s cognitive capabilities, we
created a questionnaire examining children’s level of knowledge, and awareness on global warming. This questionnaire is aimed to figure out children’s
knowledge and awareness on this topic, so that in the future we can design an
age-appropriate project in order to foster children’s learning on global warming.
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3. QUESTIONNAIRE FOR CHILDREN
ON GLOBAL WARMING
The questionnaire on global warming includes seven questions, three are
open-ended and four are multiple-choice questions. We directed this questionnaire to two different age groups; 9 and 11 year old primary school children. We sampled out a total number of 51 students, 30 of them are eleven
year-olds and the rest are nine year-olds. We collected data from Güzelyalı
Ilköğretim Okulu, in June 2009.
Below, the original questions in the questionnaire are presented:
Question 1: What is global warming?
Question 2: How important is global warming to you?
a. In the extent that it influences me
b. In the extent that it influences all people
Question 3: Are you sensitive towards and aware of global warming?
a. Yes
b. No
Question 4: Below the possible problems that may arise because of global
warming are given. Which one(s) concerns you the most?
a. Many countries are faced problems in nutrition
b. Natural catastrophes
c. Problems on water resources
d. Prevalence of epidemic illnesses
Question 5: Choose the precautions that you personally take on global warming.
a. I am aware about reserving water consumption.
b. I am aware about reserving electricity.
c. I am aware about the cosmetics I use.
d. I use paper bags instead of plastic ones.
e. Other.
Question 6: Write down the concepts and words that are related to global
warming.
Question 7: Has there ever been any global warming-related event at your
school? If yes, what have you learned? If no, do you want such an event to
happen, and why?
3.1. WHAT CHILDREN KNOW ON GLOBAL WARMING
TODAY
In this section, we derived the answers to the open-ended questions on global
warming (Questions 1, 6 and 7). We have taken the common themes that
are provided by children in order to reflect their extent of knowledge on this
topic. Below, common answers to these question are presented:
Common themes in answers to Question 1:
- Using water and electricity when and if they are necessary to use.
- Temperature rise and extinction of trees.
- Pollution created by the harmful gases and in the ozone layer.
- Hunger and thirst.
- Effects of harmful sunray on earth.
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- Earth becoming desert.
- Icicles melting, rise in sea level.
- Consumption of resources without awareness.
- Shortage in rain fall.
- Extinction of certain species.
- Environmental pollution.
- Unbalance in natural life.
- Increase in epidemic illnesses.
Common themes in answers to Question 6:
Sweating, increase in temperature, light, shortage of water, extinction of species, awareness in consumption of water and electricity, epidemic illnesses,
natural catastrophes, earth becoming desert, polluting products, rise in sea
level, being unaware about global warming, cosmetics, batteries, hunger, resources of water, plastic, sun, life, human beings, nature, environmental pollution, melting icicles, death, poverty, living things, atmosphere, ozone, oxygen, environment.
Common themes in answers to Question 7:
Almost all 11 year-old children stated that they were informed on global
warming. However, 9 year-olds stated that they did not receive a formal training about global warming but almost all of them stated that they wish they
could.
Fig. 6. Awareness of Children
3.2. AWARENESS OF CHILDREN ON GLOBAL WARMING
In this section, we derived the answers to the multiple-choice questions on
global warming (Questions 2, 3, 4, and 5). (fig. 6) We have calculated the
percentages by using the answers provided by children in order to reflect
their extent of awareness on this topic. According to these answers, the following information is gathered:
- 4% of children stated that global warming is important to them in the extent
that it influences themselves, whereas 96% of them stated this importance to
be in the extent that it influences all people.
- 100% of children stated that they are sensitive towards and aware of global
warming.
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11
- Children stated that shortage of water resources, hunger, natural catastrophes and epidemic illnesses are the most concerning consequences of global
warming, respectively.
- Children stated that awareness on water consumption, awareness on electricity consumption, awareness on cosmetics consumption and usage of paper bags instead of plastic ones are the precautions that they took, respectively.
08-09 GD494 GRADUATION THESIS
12
CONCLUSION
Integrating the literature on cognitive capabilities of primary school children,
their level and way of understanding arts and their knowledge and awareness
level on global warming has improved our understanding on the ways to follow for designing our projects about illustrating global warming for children.
Regarding the cognitive capabilities and educational level of 9 and 11 year
olds, we have concluded that these age groups reached the perceptual and
cognitive threshold to understand highly hypothetical problems such as
global warming. Below, we have described a hypothetical project design for
illustrating global warming for children within the light of our thesis study.
We have thought about designing a social awareness project on global
warming, which is called “Clean World Club”. The aim of this club is introducing global warming to children by transforming its specific characteristics
into specifically designed characters. These specifically designed characters
are aimed to constitute heros for children by using designs which are visually and content-wise effective for those age groups. In these terms, we can
design characters with different shapes, colors, size, and names, which will
be appropriate for those age groups perceptually. In addition, we can make
these characters give messages to children, which are comprehensive for
those age groups cognitively. These messages and slogans should be selected
and used in a way that will attract their attention and lead them to develop
a genuine enthusiasm. Because we know from the literature that, especially
primary school children are open to be affected by a role model, such as a
hero-character, in organizing their attitudes and behaviors. Thus, hero characters’ messages should be effective on creating a social awareness regarding
global warming.
Finally, regarding choosing the context that children will be exposed
to the designed hero-characters, the visuals which will be designed to attract
their attention should be presented in the places that children spend most
of their times, such as schools, social clubs, and even play-grounds. The exposure to these hero characters can be varied by using promotional visuals,
such as brochures, stickers, posters, flyers, web designs, and other advertising
channels and tools.
Within the light of our study, we concluded that a project like “Clean
World Club”, which is specifically designed for primary school children,
should be an effective way of developing social awareness on global warming
in children.
08-09 GD494 GRADUATION THESIS
13
REFERENCES
FRANCES DRAKE, Global Warming – The Science of Climate Change,
(2000)
Dr. Resat Uzmen, Küresel Isınma ve Iklim Değişikliği- İnsanları Bekleyen Büyük
Felaket mi?, (2007)
Dorothy Mackenzie, Green Desingn(For the Enviromental), (2005)
JIM KRAUSE, Layout Index, (2001)
Robert V. Kail, Children and Their Development – Fifth Edition
Pemra Saglikova, Primitif Sanat ve Cocuk Yaraticiliginin Cagdas Sanata
Kaynak olmasi(Yüksek Lisans Tez Konusu)
Kayıhan Keskinok, Sanat Eğitimi(Aşamalı Yöntem)
INTERNET REFERENCES
http://www.icaf.org
http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk
http://tiki.oneworld.net/global_warming/climate9.html