Empathy-Driven Problem Definition

Students engage with community stakeholders to uncover real needs and constraints around interpreting cellular respiration as a combustion process. They conduct brief interviews or observations to collect empathy artifacts (quotes, notes, affinity sketches) and draft a Point-of-View (POV) statement. They then formulate How Might We (HMW) questions, build user personas, and create a systems map or problem tree that clarifies scientific and human factors. A small user panel reviews the artifacts, providing feedback to iterate and refine the problem definition.