Exploratory Practice-Mind Map

At the beginning, I decided that my target audience would be the teenagers. Then I thought that for teenagers, issues related to identity and environmental protection were what they needed to confront at present. At first, I focused my attention on the theme of identity. As I conducted research on this topic, I discovered that people have memories and emotions about the land, and the memories of the land can enhance their sense of belonging. And for the land, I also thought of another theme that I initially came up with – environmental protection.

I have always loved hiking. I enjoy witnessing the magnificent scenery of nature. However, every time I’m on a hiking trip, I always see places where human footprints have left behind piles of garbage. Many animals go to eat this garbage, and the nearby plants are also damaged. What makes me most upset is that beside the bones of the animals, there are still human garbage. Among those who litter randomly during outdoor activities, many are teenagers. They participate in outdoor activities out of the temporary craze on social media, but they don’t know to take their garbage with them.

I have always believed that humans, plants and animals are all part of nature. Although this land belongs to us humans, it is not just ours. Due to the continuous advancement of technology, environmental damage is inevitable. However, I hope that in those places where human footprints are rare, we can try our best to avoid damaging the environment where other creatures, such as animals and plants, that live on this earth together, can survive. We should coexist. If we randomly destroy the environment, it will eventually come back to harm us, for example, as we all know, climate change.

At first, my topic was about identity. I then expanded it to include memories of my hometown. But in the end, I decided to create an animation about environmental protection. Because nature is also a part of my hometown.

The solution I came up with is to make the animation clearly show that humans, plants, and animals all originated from one place and are closely related. I wanted to use a satirical approach, so I planned to make the story develop in an extreme direction. Through the conflicts of the characters or the destruction of the environment, which leads to the destruction of the surrounding environment and themselves, I wanted to express that the harm to nature and animals will be retaliated against oneself. Therefore, we must protect the environment.