Project Overview:
The subject of Healthcare reform has become a heated discussion in congress and around the nation with almost all of the debate focusing on reforming the system, expanding coverage, reducing the overall costs and finding a way to fund it.
As a service learning project, students in J553 were challenged to find the "real story" behind the healthcare debate - the issues that are not currently part of the discussion in congress, but have greatest impact on the overall cost of health care:
" 75% of the medical costs in our country are caused by basically four issues: lack of physical activity, food choices, tobacco and stress - we can't really reform healthcare until we address some of the underlying issues"
- Dr. Michael Roizen, Cleveland Clinic
Project Goals:
This project is an introduction to basic visual communication skills and the underlying process of "design thinking" that is utilized in visual story telling - how an idea becomes something you can see. The goal is to tie together the process of translating language based skills (words) into compelling visual content. Students were challenged to apply these skills to create a PSA (public service announcment) for the story idea they formaulated from their research.
In this hands-on class, students learned to utilize digital software tools to bring their ideas to life in a visual way. They were introduced to Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and Garage Band, learning which tool is best for each process, and how the tools integrate with each other. For many students this was their first endeavor in creating visual content in a digital manner