Creativity and innovationMind mapping

Mind mapping is a creative thinking technique that produces ideas by association. By creating a picture of lots of bits of information, connections can be made that may help come up with new ideas.

There is a series of steps to go though in creating a mind map.

Step one

In the middle of the page, draw or write the main problem, issue or focus, eg how to raise awareness of water pollution.

Step two

Draw some main branches off your main problem, issue or focus. These should be thick lines and should help you organise your thoughts, eg your branches could have some of the raising awareness methods such as leaflets, presentations, campaigns and poems.

Step three

At the end of each thick branch, draw thinner branches of whatever comes to mind, eg thinner branches off ‘presentations’ could include ideas relating to who the presentations should be targeted at, possible content, location or timings and possible images. The ideas do not have to be just words. They can be images too.

Step four

Once you have written all of your thoughts down, look back at your mind map. Are there any connections between your ideas? Can you draw arrows to link together different parts of your mind map?

Step five

What stands out? Once you are able to identify this, you should be able to come up with an idea for an awareness raising pack.