Students will launch their community water quality investigation by exploring how human activities impact ecosystems, conducting direct user interviews about local water use and perceptions, and creating an evidence-based empathy map to ground their upcoming lab and solution design work.

Students will synthesize their water-use interviews and water quality investigation plans into a clear, evidence-based problem definition that connects human activities to measurable ecosystem impacts. They will produce and refine a 'How Might We' statement grounded in real user quotes and anticipated lab data, preparing for ideation and solution design.

Students will generate a wide range of user-centered solutions to reduce human impacts on water quality, then narrow to their strongest concepts grounded in water data, biological oxygen demand understanding, and documented user needs.

Students will build and refine a testable prototype that reduces a specific source of aquatic pollution identified in their water quality data. Using user interview evidence and lab results (DO, pH, turbidity, phosphate), they will construct a low-to-medium fidelity model, test it with peers acting as representative users, and document feedback-driven revisions in an iteration log.

Students will validate their refined water-quality pollution solutions with an authentic audience and present a professional design story that traces their investigation, user research, prototype iterations, and evidence-based environmental reasoning.