Collaborative Partners: WGBH Emerging Platforms Initiative and
Boston Public Library Teen Central
PlaneTogether is a virtual experience that promotes positive civic engagement
among young people ages 15–24 through a world-building activity that fosters
civic imagination. PlaneTogether utilizes Zoom as an emerging social platform to
engage young people in creative speculation to produce positive
civic engagement in the context of social distancing amid a pandemic.
I created PlaneTogether with three other designers in collaboration with
the above community partners for my Master's Thesis project. The prototype provides
youth with an approachable, interactive, and collaborative opportunity to engage
in civic participation in an emerging digital space.
In partnership with WGBH’s Emerging Platforms Initiative and Boston Public Library Teen Central, we set out to answer the following design question: In the context of social distancing resulting from COVID-19, can a shared, youth-specific, digital experience promote civic engagement among young people around democratic processes?
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, it has been essential to reimagine civic activity in a socially-distant world. We designed Planetogether to be an intervention that utilizes the digital realm to produce positive civic engagement at a time when opportunities for physically connecting, collaborating, and learning were not possible.
We used creative storytelling practices to transport players into an immersive scenario in which they are selected to design the systems and infrastructures of a brand-new planet.
