Intro to HCD: Intergenerational Design with Thinkertools + the Napier Initiative

Through a unique partnership with the Napier Initiative at Pilgrim Place, students in Introduction to Human-Centered Design (HCD) got a crash course in collaboration with elders from the Claremont community, who joined the classroom not just as learners, but as co-designers!

Each elder was introduced to a student design team during the semester and contributed their lived experience, creativity, and insight to help develop innovative and intergenerational STEM/STEAM learning tools. Their objective was to co-create engaging educational materials for under-resourced primary schools, in collaboration with Thinkertools, a nonprofit founded by Linda and Todd Shimoda. Thinkertools focuses on delivering hands-on science education where it’s needed most, often in schools without access to robust STEM resources.

In collaboration with the elders, student teams dove into the HCD process: conducting empathy-based research with elementary-age learners, ideating fun and accessible STEAM experiences, prototyping their ideas, and refining them through feedback, all while teaching their elder teammates about HCD and integrating them into the process.

Their efforts culminated in a showcase of inventive prototypes that brought science to life through intergenerational creativity. Highlights from the final deliverables included a science-through-cooking lesson, a STEAM volcano workshop, a StoryCorps-style recording project capturing cross-generational stories, an egg incubation lesson hosted at Pitzer’s farm, and a multilingual family zine and role-play kit to foster engagement at home and in the classroom, among others.

For their final presentations, elders joined their teams in storytelling, design defense, and even role-play. The project’s results were not just creative deliverables, but rich relationships and fresh perspectives on both sides of the generational aisle. As one elder, Phil McKeen, put it: “This is the most exciting, engaging class I have taken in 89 years.”

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by Salina Muñoz