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Taiwan transformed from an agrarian society into an industrial one in the 1980s. Children born in the cities during this time became complete strangers to farming. As a result, they experienced a generation gap between themselves and their grandparents who spent most of their life farming. This is the reason why the younger generation rarely has a sense of belonging to their hometowns, land and culture. Based on this phenomenon, we hope to create a bridge that connects children or teenagers to the elders. Using online games that are highly attractive among teenagers to trigger motivation and interest, the games will allow teenagers to understand basic farming knowledge. The game-playing experience will then transform into a real-life version so that the children or teenagers could join the elders farming, working and harvesting. This experience will give children and teenagers a deep connection to their elders and to their homeland.

1. How to use tradition to allow young ones to learn from the elders.2. How to make the young ones identify with their hometowns and want to learn from the wisdom of the elders (tradition).3. How to connect the young ones with elders and with the land.

Co-farming

Mentor / Jong Ho Lee (Korea)Coach / Mia Chang (Taiwan)Mentoring Assistant / Ching Wen Peng (Taiwan)Team members / Tom Hsueh (Taiwan), Sang Lin Huang (Taiwan), Hwa Shin Lee (Korea), Janna RanTanen (Finland) & Angela Tay (Singapore)

TEAM22011 ASIAN SMART LIVING SUMMER SCHOOL

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DEFINEAfter finishing the three-day immersion tour, we wrote what we observed and what we thought on post-its to be shared with the group. We answered questions, such as: What would the Neverland be like for these people? Please describe in different adjectives. Another example was: Did anything you saw or experience over these three days come close to your idea of a Neverland? How so? After this exercise, we used an Empathy Map to write down our perspectives on the subject we were most interested in using the categories of see, hear, do, feel, pain and gain. All the results were collected and combined with other post-its for the next step.

In one question after another, we gradually narrowed down our thinking to reach a preliminary consensus and to make groupings from the bottom up. We then used voting by giving one person three votes to choose the issue we found most important or interesting. We endeavored to describe and explain our

decisions in order for us to reach a consensus. Next, we used the decided-upon issue for everyone to write down the POV (point of view) they were interested in. At this point, we decided that the topic we wanted to focus on would be “tradition”, and specifically how to bring about a connection in the younger generation to their to hometowns, the land, and to the elders. Ultimately, we wanted the younger generation to spontaneously carry on the fruits of the elders’ wisdom.

On the first day of the discovery tour, we were given a half-day Zen experience at Dharma Drum Mountain that brought balance to our bodies, minds, and souls. It also taught us how to experience the wonderful feeling of Zen in our daily lives. On the second day, we spent the delightful day with residents

of Yishanli, not far from Dharma Drum Mountain. We farmed, dined and studied together with the elders of the community. The residents there were deeply connected with each other and the land. On the third day we went to Xinpu in Hsinchu to explore the remnants of a town that was once very prosperous. We learned that the persimmons grown there could not only be used in cooking, but also used in dyeing cloth. It was an enlightening experience.

DISCOVER

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“Tradition” is a very big topic, especially when students are from different countries, different fields, and with different academic and professional directions. As such, we decided to work from our observations of the three-day immersion tour to find an event we all

experienced to use as common ground. Before long, we decided to focus on the one-day experience in Yishanli. Though Yishanli is a lauded and carefree village, we only saw elders in the community and farms with no the younger people. How could we let the young people passionately identify and connect with their hometown and not want to escape to the cities?

First, we must arouse their interest. To accomplish this, we used an online game combined with the concept of the most popular Facebook game “Happy Farm”. This not only would interest the young people but also help them learn the rich farming heritage. After reaching a certain level, they could then advance to the “reality game” which would entail farming and harvesting with the elders. We believe that once the young people went through the experience, they would be interested in farming and would have a deep connection to the elders.

Here, we had to establish the rules for the online game and reality game, create the conceptual model, and use role-play to depict the procedures of using the conceptual model. During the production process, we had to make sure nothing was left out at each step or if anything was illogical or could be improved.

DEVELOP

DELIVER

ROLE PLAY

SERVICE VALUE

SCENARIO A project between children and elderly communities!Key words: Interaction, Bridging Generations, Environment, Organic

Put your seeds into the soil.

Once the seed is ready, let's go to the farm!

Let it grow for 3 weeks and, Play "Angry Farmer"!

Put planter box into the soil. Pack the soil and water the plant.

Let's go to the farm to plough the field.

Come back regularly to the farm to visit us!

Harvest time! Prepare and cook traditional dishes with your elderly farmers!

Learn to respect

Give chance to experience

Have interest Learing Fun

CONCEPT

Co-farming as a Service - connecting elders and kids.The system is a service we provide to school kids as a learning tool so that children can learn and Interact with elders. It can bring the younger generation into the community, closer to the elders, and understand their ulture.

OLD NEW

LINK

FINAL PRESENTATION