Project 01 – Sign Board for trees: sketch and research

Problem Statement

Air pollution has been a significant problem in New York City. It comes from many sources like car exhaust, the smokestack in a factory or a construction site.

In order to reduce the pollution, we tried to grow as many trees as we can and hoping that they can absorb air pollution once and for all. But the thing is, we never thought about how pollutants can affect plants.

According to scientific research, ‘Plants usually show damage in a variety of ways, including visible signs of damage like necrotic lesions, stunted plant growth, or changing in color including chlorosis (aka yellowing leaves), reddening, bronzing, mottling’.

How might we catch people’s attention on the effect pollutants have on trees and help trees to call the pain out? I designed this wearable device for trees – Sign Board for trees, to point out the problem we have ignored in the past.