Duration
4 Weeks
Project Type
Interactive 3D Data Visualization
Data Redesign
Individual Project
Software
Adobe Illustrator
Processing (Java)
Save Their Ice is an interactive 3D data visualization design project that visualize polar bear population in relation to climate change to inform people more about polar bears and the arctic climate.
This project combines all the information related to the polar bear population and Arctic climate change into one interactive visualization, enabling viewers to understand the severity of the situation in the Arctic. Viewers can hover over the timeline to select a specific year and interact with the visualization by pressing and moving the screen to explore it from different angles.
The decline of polar bear population due to climate change is a critical issue that highlights the seriousness of environmental issues of our planet. While the Polar Bear International website shows data like polar bear populations, Arctic temperatures, and iceberg volumes, its complex and user-unfriendly design makes it hard for viewers to connect emotionally and empathize with the challenges polar bears face.
I wanted to present the data in a more engaging and accessible way to help viewers easily understand the information and emotionally connect with the urgency of protecting polar bears and the Arctic climate.
There were multiple set of data that needed to be collected for this project. I decided to focus on the years from 1995 to 2010 and started to organize data like polar bear population, average ice berg volume each month, and average Arctic temperature each year.
The polar bears on top of the ice berg each represents a number, 10000, 5000, 3000, 1000, or 500. Each polar bear will add up to the total population data per year.
The height of the top, outer corner of the quadrilateral represents the ice berg volume each month labeled on the bottom.
0.35°C
0.75°C
The color of the ice berg represents the Arctic's average temperature each year. As the temperature rise, the color will turn brown.
Through this project on polar bears and Arctic climate change, I came to understand the severity of the environmental challenges facing our planet and the urgent need for greater awareness to take action. As my first data visualization project, it was challenging to determine the most effective way to present the data and ensure that people are well-informed. However, I believe my project successfully addressed the issue of user-unfriendliness, creating an engaging and accessible tool for people to stop by and learn about this topic.