Kids in Action – Think it Make it

Plastic is deeply embedded in everyday life. It appears in a bottle, a lunch box, a shopping bag, a recycling bin, and often in decisions made too quickly to be noticed. For PMQ Seed 2024 “Kids in Action”, AaaM Architects developed Think it Make it as a creative education programme that invited students to slow down and look again at plastic — not only as waste, but as a social, behavioural and environmental issue shaped by habits, convenience, knowledge and responsibility.

The programme began by helping students build a shared understanding of plastic waste, recycling principles and environmental impact. Instead of presenting environmental protection as a fixed message, the workshop opened up the issue as something to be explored. Students were encouraged to ask why people use plastic, why recycling is challenging, and how everyday habits are influenced by both personal choices and public systems — laying the groundwork for meaningful action.

AaaM structured the learning journey through design thinking, moving from observation and problem definition to ideation, prototyping and testing. Students stepped beyond the classroom to conduct field research and street interviews in the surrounding community, collecting real opinions, habits and everyday experiences. This shift allowed them to understand that design begins with listening, and that proposals must respond to how people actually live.

Plastic is not a simple issue. It involves production, consumption, disposal, recycling infrastructure, convenience, cost, public awareness and shared responsibility. To help students navigate this complexity, the programme introduced structured discussions around “reducing” and “reshaping” plastic use. By comparing perspectives and building arguments, students learned to examine different possibilities and understand the implications behind each approach.

Students transformed their research findings, viewpoints and improvement ideas into presentation boards and public-facing content, then brought the “Plastic Press Conference” into the community. In a real public setting, they introduced their design outcomes and invited responses from neighbours and local users. This public-facing platform helped students learn how to organise data, arguments and creative ideas into content that could be seen, understood and discussed. It also allowed their proposals to be tested through real conversation, turning the street into an extended learning environment.

Through research, questioning, presentation and public response, students gradually came to understand the importance of seeing from the user’s perspective. Design is not simply about proposing what one believes to be correct; it also requires understanding how different people think, live and respond. This became one of the programme’s important learning outcomes: empathy was no longer an abstract value, but the starting point of problem-solving, helping students transform environmental concerns into actions grounded in real-life situations.

For AaaM, Think it Make it was more than an environmental workshop. It was a design learning process that encouraged young people to observe the world, discuss it, test it in public and respond through action. By connecting plastic awareness, debate, community feedback and student reflection, the programme empowered participants to turn everyday concerns into shared proposals — and to see themselves as active participants in shaping a more responsible future.