Its World Creativity and Innovation Week and I am participating in another #creativeHE conversation. This one is formed around using and cultivating imagination and its being led by Gillian Judson who leads the ImaginEd network based in Canada. As always these conversations make me think about the topic we are discussing in ways that I have not thought about them before. And stuff emerges, usually in the supplementary questions, that I had not thought about before. For me one of the interesting questions that came in to my mind was, if imagination is primarily concerned with 'mental images' and these are based on memories of visual perception, how do people who have not been able to see the world (people who are blind from birth) imagine? This question prompted me to search for answers and so far I have not really discovered an answer that I find satisfactory. But as part of this search I discovered that there is a condition called "aphantasia"where people with sight lose the ability to form images in their mind.
DAY3 CHALLENGE Taking my imagination for a walk
Our imagination accompanies us everwhere we go and it is often triggered by our interactions with our environment. So I particularly liked the challenge on Day 3 - to go for a walk to engage our imaginations. My daughter was home from University and she likes walking so she became my walking companion.
Imagination is often aided by serendipitous happenings. In fact I think we use our imaginations to make weird and wonderful connections between the chance happenings in our lives which then gives them more meaning and significance. A few days ago I went for a family meal in our local pub and picked up a leaflet called ‘Walk for Health’.. It described a local project to encourage people to get out and walk. I spotted a walk that looked interesting called the Deepdene Trail not far from my home and made a mental note to try it. Unfortunately I forgot my leaflet so I had to look up the location of the trail on my computer and discovered it had an app with loads of information on it. I really liked the interactive nature of the app and began to imagine that I could create an app for my own walk.
Our imagination accompanies us everwhere we go and it is often triggered by our interactions with our environment. So I particularly liked the challenge on Day 3 - to go for a walk to engage our imaginations. My daughter was home from University and she likes walking so she became my walking companion.
Imagination is often aided by serendipitous happenings. In fact I think we use our imaginations to make weird and wonderful connections between the chance happenings in our lives which then gives them more meaning and significance. A few days ago I went for a family meal in our local pub and picked up a leaflet called ‘Walk for Health’.. It described a local project to encourage people to get out and walk. I spotted a walk that looked interesting called the Deepdene Trail not far from my home and made a mental note to try it. Unfortunately I forgot my leaflet so I had to look up the location of the trail on my computer and discovered it had an app with loads of information on it. I really liked the interactive nature of the app and began to imagine that I could create an app for my own walk.
About 10 mins before we were going to start our walk I discovered an online map making tool called Habitat Network offered as a free to use tool by Cornell University. Its part of a citizen science project to encouraging people to make maps of their gardens.. I loved the idea.. As a former geologist I love maps and I love making maps. There is something about making or using them that stimulates my imagination. They force us to interpret the symbols, colours and codes in the map image to make something meaningful. They also provide us with a big picture synthesising lots of information which our imagination can assimilate and use.
After a short drive we found the start of the trail and had a really lovely walk through some ancient woodlands that had been a deer park in the 1300’s. The oak trees were magnificent and it triggered conversation about their age and what the area might have been like 500 years ago. We noticed the birdsong and I made a recording with my phone to try to work out what birds were singing.
With the #creative challenge in my mind I knew I was going to try and encourage my daughter to use her imagination.. I was quite open about it and told her about the #creativeHE conversation and our challenge and then, using a bit of reverse psychology I told her I was going to let her stimulate my imagination. She is studying biological sciences and interested in ecology and there were quite a few opportunities for her to share her knowledge – stuff I didn’t know about plant growth for example. She’s interested in ecology and we discussed the idea of using our garden for an ecological study. I told her about the Habitat mapping tool I’d just discovered and she sounded interested. When we got home I showed it to her and she remained mildly interested. I could seethe potential it had for creating a habitat map of the garden and I thought if I made a start it might prompt her to make her own ecological study.
With the #creative challenge in my mind I knew I was going to try and encourage my daughter to use her imagination.. I was quite open about it and told her about the #creativeHE conversation and our challenge and then, using a bit of reverse psychology I told her I was going to let her stimulate my imagination. She is studying biological sciences and interested in ecology and there were quite a few opportunities for her to share her knowledge – stuff I didn’t know about plant growth for example. She’s interested in ecology and we discussed the idea of using our garden for an ecological study. I told her about the Habitat mapping tool I’d just discovered and she sounded interested. When we got home I showed it to her and she remained mildly interested. I could seethe potential it had for creating a habitat map of the garden and I thought if I made a start it might prompt her to make her own ecological study.
I think the walk provided a natural and relaxing context to have a number of conversations through which we exercised our imaginations and prepared the ground for possible action. In my case the discovery of Habitat Network and making of a simple habitat map using the on-line mapping tool. What comes out of it for my daughter has yet to be seen. If nothing else it will be a memory of a nice walk that we share.
Post script
We had parked the car in a garden centre so we popped in at the end of the walk. I found a wonderful book called Lets Go Outside by Steph Scott and Katie Akers.. it was written for someone like me (grandad with 7 grandchildren) and it was full of imaginative ideas on ‘foraging’ finding and making stuff from the stuff you find outside. I love it. A fantastic example of people sharing their imaginations in a practical and accessible way so that other people can be inspired to use their imaginations.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Go-Outside-Imaginative-Projects/dp/1849942765/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524038965&sr=8-1&keywords=Lets+Go+Outside+by+Steph+Scott+and+Katie+Akers..
Post script
We had parked the car in a garden centre so we popped in at the end of the walk. I found a wonderful book called Lets Go Outside by Steph Scott and Katie Akers.. it was written for someone like me (grandad with 7 grandchildren) and it was full of imaginative ideas on ‘foraging’ finding and making stuff from the stuff you find outside. I love it. A fantastic example of people sharing their imaginations in a practical and accessible way so that other people can be inspired to use their imaginations.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Go-Outside-Imaginative-Projects/dp/1849942765/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524038965&sr=8-1&keywords=Lets+Go+Outside+by+Steph+Scott+and+Katie+Akers..
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