September 29, 2025

MFA DSI Student Team Partners with + POOL to Design Water Science Field Guide for Young New Yorkers

“1 in 4 NYC kids don’t know how to swim” – Swim Strong Foundation

But how do we change this? MFA Design for Social Innovation’s long-standing partner, + POOL, is part of the story of addressing New Yorkers’ access to the waters that surround them.

+ POOL is building the world’s first water-filtering floating pool in NYC’s East River. Beyond this, + POOL has launched a movement to foster New Yorkers’ relationship with their natural waters by making access to water more equitable, whether through water stewardship, environmental education, or swim instruction.

In the MFA DSI course Communication Design, taught by Chair, Miya Osaki and Corwin Green, students work with external clients and organizations to design communications as a system with intentional impact on outcomes. This past spring in Communication Design, MFA DSI students, Jieying Du, Xiaolan Fu, Hao Jie Sim, Ximing Wang, & Yixin Zhang, partnered with + POOL to design water science field guides for the next generation of New York’s water stewards – bringing to life the core learning of intentional and impactful communications.

At DSI, our design practice is always community-centered. The student team collaborated with the local NYC community by:

• Leading a water filtration activity at Super Science Saturday! at an elementary school in Brooklyn
• Concept testing with New York City kids and families
• Conducting street interviews at the Climate Day Fair in Union Square, NYC

Ultimately, this led the student team to the conclusion that a Water Science Field Guide was a more sustainable, accessible, and scalable option than a toolkit to grow the next generation of NYC water stewards.

Which brings us to Bella’s Water Missions! A field guide for NYC kids (8-10 y/o) and guardians to explore, learn, and care for water together. The field guide incorporates all their conclusions from their community-centered research, including:

• Mission-based learning
• Character-led narrative
• Multi-modal learning

Why does this matter? As previously described, + POOL is more than just a pool in NYC’s East River, their premise depends on waters that are conserved, on nature we can coexist with. At the heart of this is a need to understand and address climate change by cultivating relationships between New Yorkers and their ecosystem. To quote the student team: “When kids love water, they grow up to protect it.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF Jieying Du, Xiaolan Fu, Hao Jie Sim, Ximing Wang, & Yixin Zhang.