TKS Session 9: Global Waste
For this session, we looked into one of the world’s most complicated problems, global waste. Global waste has multiple different components that contribute to the entire problem, which is a perfect pairing for the MotW, nth order thinking.
We first looked into the MotW before diving into the focus of the session. We cover nth order thinking in Innovate, and it’s an important one to bring back for Activate as well. nth order thinking is the process of thinking nth amount of times ahead and analyzing the nth amount of consequences that stem from a problem or idea. For example, if we wanted to bring a new idea to market, we might analyze the short-term consequences of what will happen the moment the idea goes to market. But, nth order thinking goes beyond the short-term. When we use nth order thinking, we analyze the consequences that generations beyond our own may experience (consequences meaning both good and bad), as well as the effects that may occur in other areas that seem unrelated to what we are focusing on. nth order thinking is like a tier thinking strategy, where you uncover one layer of consequences, and then analyze the consequences of those ones, and so on, until you keep digging deeper. nth order thinking allows you to analyze a problem or idea in depth and make more informed decisions.
Something we looked into relating to nth order thinking is how there can be a fine line between “nth order thinking” and “overthinking”. It’s important to differentiate the two and make sure that while your digging deep into the topic using nth order thinking, you also aren’t “over-digging” and getting trapped in a loop where you eventually never make a decision or choose a direction.
But, this mindset is very important when it comes to analyzing global problems, specifically global waste.
What we learned was that global waste comes from so many different sources, and in order to even begin trying to tackle the problem, you have to really narrow down what you’re trying to focus on. We looked at many contributors to global waste, such as food waste, process waste, consumption waste, productivity waste, etc. But there were so many other forms of waste that we looked at as well. The point of that first part of the session was not to understand every kind of waste factor for this global problem, but to see the scale at which this problem is at and how nth order thinking can be beneficial to help break the problem down into actionable steps to combat it.
For our activity, we looked at a few organizations that are trying to tackle different parts of global waste, in the sectors of:
Methane production
Water contamination
Energy production
What we did is we chose one of those three sectors that are impacting/impacted by global waste, and then completed a brainstorm, which lead into an nth order thinking flow chart, in order to practice analyzing the problem. Because, even when broken down into a specific sector, the problem of methane production, for example, is still so big that you need to break it down further into one specific problem.
Our group chose to work on global waste in the methane production sector. We first did a brainstorm to try and think of all the factors that contribute to methane production. Some of the stuff we came up with that factored into methane production included
Anaerobic organisms
Landfills
Rice fields
Forest fires
Wetlands
Cows
We ended up settling on digging deeper into how landfills contribute to methane production. Landfills that depend on anaerobic organisms (organisms that don’t rely on oxygen) use those organisms to break down the waste stored in those landfills. One of the consequences of those organisms breaking down the waste is that they produce methane. We used an nth order thinking chart to analyze why this problem exists in the first place, and what some of the factors are that prevent it from being solved.
In our group, as we each contributed to the chart, we found that each of us would come up with a different conclusion as to what the most important factor is that causes the problem of landfills and methane production. One kid looked specifically into the science of how anaerobic organisms produce methane upon breaking down waste, and how we need to target creating a new method. One kid looked into how methane production is just another factor in other environmental problems, like climate change or global warming, and analyzed how reduced methane production by landfills would help mitigate those effects as well. As I was looking further into this problem, I identified the greatest factor (in my opinion) to be awareness by the government and the people. Global waste isn’t a problem that is defined or has investment put into it by the government, compared to other problems, like climate change. This is why we are still using old infrastructure and methods to manage waste, because no one is aware of how out-of-date and damaging landfills that depend on anaerobic organisms are. In order to create change, we need to focus on bringing awareness and investment from these parties to the problem at hand.
What I’m highlighting is that everyone is going to draw a different conclusion from these nth order thinking charts, and that’s because nth order thinking allows you to identify and connect all the different factors that contribute to the overall problem, leaving much room for interpretation, but also a better understanding of the scale and impact of the problem.
After doing this exercise, we moved into some focused focus/personal project work. We were given a workbook where we could do an analysis of what stage our focus/personal project was at. The point of doing this analysis is for a couple of reasons:
To get a better understanding of where you‘re at and what your next steps need to be in order to make the most progress
To plan for the demo day on December 13th and make sure you have something to actually demo/show for your work by that date
The workbook comprised these different categories:
Current state: What have we built so far, what skills we’ve learned, and what resources we already have for this project
Goal(s) by December 13th (demo day): What do we want to achieve by that date so we can confidently present our work
The gap (what’s missing): We compared our current state vs our goals to see what would be needed to achieve those goals. We looked from multiple perspectives, such as a skill and knowledge gap, a resource gap, and an execution gap
Priority actions (closing the gap): What were three action items we could complete right away to get closer to our goals
Action plan (roadmap): We created a timeline week by week and made notes of the tasks to complete that week, and what the outcome of those tasks would be, to make sure we were getting closer to our end goal
This workbook was a good opportunity to take note of the current progress level of our focus/personal project, and plan for our future goals by December 13th and beyond that.
We spent the rest of the session doing that analysis workbook, and we ended right there. It was a really interesting session because I genuinely learned so much about global waste through nth order thinking, and it was a cool topic to focus on because so many things impact this problem.
