2A — Monday, September 16, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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DES IGN JA M

ALEC COHEN/Daily
Students from the School of Information work on creating new ideas for water safety improvement at a Multidisciplinary Design Jam in the 
UMSI Engagement Center Friday afternoon.

DESIGN BY ALEC COHEN

Throughout 
the 
process, 
the 
students 
incorporated 
feedback from stakeholders, 
including two representatives 
from the Great Lakes Water 
Safety 
Consortium, 
Jamie 
Racklyeft and Dan Metcalf.
Design Jams were launched in 
2017 by a group of organizers from 
the School of Information, the 
Law School, the School of Public 
Health and the Center for Academic 
Innovation as a way to encourage 
interdisciplinary 
dialogue 
and 
generate 
possible 
solutions 
to 
large-scale problems based on the 
Innovation in Action challenges. 
According to Scott TenBrink, 
manager 
of 
UMSI’s 
Citizen 
Experience Design program and 
one of the event organizers, Design 
Jams provide the stakeholders 
with new ideas and also benefit 
the participating students who 
are exposed to interdisciplinary 
problem-solving. 
“We’ve worked with the Law 
School, Engineering, Public Health, 
and continue to try to reach out and 

get more people involved to provide 
this 
kind 
of 
multidisciplinary 
experience,” TenBrink said. 
The Water Safety Design Jam 
topic was suggested by Jamie 
Racklyeft, executive director and 
founder of the Great Lakes Water 
Safety Consortium, who reached 
out after hearing about Design Jams 
through a colleague.
Racklyeft 
founded 
the 
Consortium in 2016 after nearly 
drowning in 2012 due to a riptide 
in Lake Michigan, at Van’s Beach 
in Leland. According to Racklyeft, 
the consortium aims to eventually 
end drowning in the Great Lakes 
and focuses on helping people more 
safely enjoy the water. Currently, 
there are over 3,500 drownings 
in the United States annually and 
there have been more than 800 
in the Great Lakes since tracking 
started in 2010. The Great Lakes 
Water Consortium also states that 
drowning is the number one cause 
of death in children between ages 1 
and 4. 
Racklyeft said he was grateful for 
the opportunity to hear students’ 
creative ideas on how to tackle the 
drowning epidemic. 
“To have some of the best and 

brightest students coming at this 
from a fresh perspective with the 
cutting-edge problem-solving skills 
they have, like design thinking and 
so on, is really, really exciting,” 
Racklyeft said.
Racklyeft said there are a few 
basic steps that need to be taken to 
prevent drownings. People need to 
be able to swim; they need to have 
information on water safety, lake 
conditions and riptides; they need 
to have access to a lifeguard and 
safety equipment; and they should 
be familiar with the mantra “Flip, 
Float, Follow,” a drowning survival 
technique. One major challenge, 
Racklyeft said, is disseminating 
water 
safety 
information 
and 
getting swimmers to actually take 
measures toward improved water 
safety, so the Consortium is looking 
for new, innovative strategies. 
“There’s a lot of fundamentals 
that we know, but then we know 
that we need more innovative 
approaches, especially in how to 
persuade people,” Racklyeft said. 
“It’s one thing to inform them 
about the danger, but it’s another 
to get them to actually change their 
behavior towards something a little 
safer, like putting on a life jacket, 
like swimming near a lifeguard, 
like making sure there’s rescue 
equipment if necessary, or just in 
general, if it looks like it might be 
dangerous, trust that little voice.”
Racklyeft kicked off the Design 
Jam by discussing the importance 
of water safety and sharing his 
story. According to TenBrink, after 
Racklyeft shared a video about 
his experience and the emotional 
impact of drownings, the room 
fell silent. TenBrink said Friday’s 
Design Jam was unique in that it 
centered around a heavy topic. 
Even if students don’t have 
direct experience with drownings, 
TenBrink said he feels it’s a topic 
many people can connect to 
emotionally. 
“When you think about Great 
Lakes drowning, maybe you’re not 
directly connected to that, but it 
feels like something that would be 
really great to be part of a solution 
for,” TenBrink said. 
Most of the groups focused 
on ways to better spread water 
safety 
information 
and 
make 
safety equipment more accessible. 
Ideas included a kids’ water safety 
mascot similar to Smokey the Bear, 

who represents fire safety; a safety 
sign connected to a push message 
and Amber Alert; a kids cereal box 
with information; a “Flip, Float, 
Follow” social media campaign 
and different methods of supplying 
safety kits and materials on beaches. 
The groups built or drew small-
scale prototypes of their ideas and 
pitched them to the stakeholders, 
then had ten minutes to refine their 
products. The groups then gave 
two-minute presentations to the 
room. 
The winning idea picked by the 
stakeholders was a multifaceted 
approach to encouraging the usage 
of safety equipment, especially 
life jackets. Information junior 
Sai Surbehera, a member of the 
winning team, pointed out that 
almost 90 percent of drowning 
victims in the U.S were not wearing 
life jackets. His team aimed to 
make life vests more accessible by 
providing safety equipment stations 
on beaches. 
Surbehera said there are many 
psychological 
reasons 
for 
not 
wearing a life vest, including 
tanning or wanting to look cool. 
Surbehera’s team tried to confront 
the problem by conceptualizing a 
Snapchat filter that would turn a life 
vest into six-pack abs. According to 
Surbehera, this also played upon 
the fact that the vast majority of 
drowning victims are male. 
One interesting aspect of the 
Design Jam, Surbehera said, was 
working with a group representing a 
wide range of backgrounds. Most of 
his group members came from areas 
with many beachfronts, including 
New Jersey, Washington state and 
Michigan, but each member had a 
different understanding of beach 
culture. As a result, Surbehera said, 
the team could better address some 
of the cultural factors affecting life 
jacket usage. 
In announcing the winning 
team, 
Racklyeft 
said 
the 
stakeholders found the focus on 
life jackets compelling, since so 
few drowning victims are wearing 
safety equipment. Still, he said 
he was impressed by all the ideas 
and plans to incorporate them 
into the Great Lakes Water Safety 
Consortium’s future work.

WATER SAFETY
From Page 1A

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