What the Future Brings

Learning goals

• To speculate on the digital environment of future generations and think about possible ways to mitigate the negative impacts of technological developments.
• To identify the challenges and opportunities of technology.

Duration

•  80-115 minutes (depending on the size of the group)

Outline

Part 1: Future Predictions / 15-25 minutes

• In a large group, explore these introductory topics, look at the postcards, watch a video, and reflect together.

  • Introduction: How did people in the past predict the future of technology? People have always imagined what the future will look like, but with technological inventions and rapid industrialisation, these predictions became more frequent and obscure. Suddenly anything could be possible from flying cars to talking computers.

  • Postcards from the 19th / 20th century: The Public Domain Review webpage linked below displays postcards which showcase artistic interpretations of the future. You can see how some of them are far-fetched, like a whale-bus. But some of them are not too far from reality, for example an electric scrubber and computers being used in schools. (Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vision-of-the-year-2000)

    • Ask the group to reflect: What is surprising? What is accurate? Can you think of an existing technology that is similar to these predictions?

  • Video: A group of young people were interviewed in 1966 about what they predicted the world would look like in the year 2000. (Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/children-predict-the-year-2000-1966/zmts7nb, 1:11-2:58 & 4:05-5:45)

    • Ask the group to reflect: What is surprising? What is accurate? What do their predictions say about the world they were living in at the time?

Part 2: Speculating the Future / 20-30 minutes

• Divide participants into smaller groups (approx. 4 people in a group)
• Each group discusses what the digital environment will look like in 30 years and creates a speculative mood board about the digital experience of a teenager in 30 years’ time.
• They can use the questions from the card for inspiration (e.g. What has changed? What has stayed the same? What are the unique challenges of the next generation?)

Part 3: Presentation /  15-20 minutes

• Ask a representative of each group to share their predictions (3 minutes per group).

Part 4: Message for Future Generations / 15 minutes

• Knowing what challenges future generations can face, is there anything you would advise or promise the future generation of young people? In small groups, write a message for the future generation of young people with 1) a piece of advice or 2) a promise of something your generation will do to help them.

Part 5: Presentation / 10-15 minutes

• Ask each group (or a representative from each) to share their advice and promises for future generations (2 minutes per group).

Part 6: Wrap up / 5-10 minutes

• Wrap up and reflection of the activity:

  • What did they find interesting?
  • What did they find challenging?
  • Are they feeling hopeful or hopeless?

Variations

• Part 1: If you can find examples of old local artists or vintage popular media with predictions of the future, feel free to use those instead of the postcards.
• Part 1: If you have more time, you can watch the whole video, or you can use more postcards (they can be found on the website).
• Part 1: In the case of limited time, the day before you can assign as homework watching the video and looking at the postcards in advance and only reflect on the resources together in the group.
• Part 2: Depending how much you want to go deep into future speculation, you can choose a different time range; the nearer future (in 10 years) or, conversely, the more distant future (in 50 years).
• Part 3: Mood boards can be displayed after the activity so everyone can have enough time to look at them.
• Part 4: The message can be in any other formats: a postcard, a video, a voice message, a poster.

Materials

• Activity cards
• Paper sheets
• Pens or markers
• Projector and online access (or downloaded video and postcards) for Part 1

Facilitator tips

• For creating the mood boards use at least an A4 sheet of paper. If the group is bigger, they could even use larger paper, such as A3. If you have old magazines, leaflets etc., participants can use them for clippings and collages.
• This activity is designed to be done in groups, however the group work section can be done individually.
• The duration of each part is an estimation. Be aware that the size of group, how active or passive participants are in the discussions or the option to include the proposed  variations can impact the duration of each activity.
• In a case the overall mood by the end of the activity is low or hopeless, the facilitator can wrap up by ending on a positive note about something in the past that kids were afraid of that actually got better. E.g. Because of advances in technology, we are better able to understand our impacts on the planet to the point where humanity has been able to help the ozone layer begin to heal. (source) Also, renewable energy is becoming more commonplace and affordable around the world, being rolled out on a larger scale as coal is set to be phased out in places like the European Union the coming decades. (source) Ideally the facilitator can use local examples of things that changed in a positive way with collaboration and action.

Preview the activity card

Download the activity cards and outline

Are you an educator? Do you want to use these activities as part of a lesson or a workshop? See our Further Learning materials page to find guides and mini workshops based around the What the Future Wants activities.