Abstract
Citizen science and citizen data are widely used to engage with anthropogenic effects such as pollution and species loss. However, their focus on data gathering and objectivization can result in dispassionate learning. Futures scaffolding offers an alternative design approach that reimagines how environmental knowledge can be generated, experienced, and materialized. Positioned within co-speculative design, this practice uses design methods to make visible what data represents and to cultivate ocean futures. This paper mobilizes a workshop kit called Monsters of Marine Debris (MMD) as an object of design to illustrate futures scaffolding. MMD makes data a source of futures-making rather than a goal of community engagement. Participants engage in embedded, embodied, and emergent processes that spark entangled, more-than-human thinking about anthropocentric marine debris (AMD). By applying futures scaffolding, MMD reframes citizen data as a generative design material that supports relational, affective, and imaginative engagements with environmental futures.
Keywords
futures scaffolding; ocean futures; anthropogenic marine debris (AMD); environmental education
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.341
Citation
Russell, G., Reilly, K., Park, J., and Thu, L. (2026) Scaffolding Oceans Futures: Design for embedded, embodied, and emergent thinking, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.341
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Scaffolding Oceans Futures: Design for embedded, embodied, and emergent thinking
Citizen science and citizen data are widely used to engage with anthropogenic effects such as pollution and species loss. However, their focus on data gathering and objectivization can result in dispassionate learning. Futures scaffolding offers an alternative design approach that reimagines how environmental knowledge can be generated, experienced, and materialized. Positioned within co-speculative design, this practice uses design methods to make visible what data represents and to cultivate ocean futures. This paper mobilizes a workshop kit called Monsters of Marine Debris (MMD) as an object of design to illustrate futures scaffolding. MMD makes data a source of futures-making rather than a goal of community engagement. Participants engage in embedded, embodied, and emergent processes that spark entangled, more-than-human thinking about anthropocentric marine debris (AMD). By applying futures scaffolding, MMD reframes citizen data as a generative design material that supports relational, affective, and imaginative engagements with environmental futures.