Futures thinking in the classroom: activities to imagine futures

Why bring the future into the classroom

Students will live much of their lives in futures that are barely hinted at today. Practicing foresight helps them notice change, question what seems inevitable and imagine alternatives.

UNESCO calls this ability futures literacy: using the future to better understand the present. Like any literacy, it is learned through practice.

Signal walk

A short walk around the neighborhood or the school to train the eye:

• In groups, each student looks for something new, unusual or out of place and records it: what they saw, where, and a photo if possible.
• Back in class, each group picks one signal and answers: what is happening? Why? What could it look like in the future?
• Finally, look for overlaps between the signals of all the groups.

The futures cone in class

With a signal chosen by the group, draw the futures cone on the board and write a possible, a plausible, a probable and a preferable future 10 years out. The discussion about the preferable future is usually the richest: it shows that the future is also a question of values.

Letters to and from the future

• Letter to the future: each student writes to someone who will live in their neighborhood in 2060. What do they tell them about the present? What are they leaving them?
• Letter from the future: someone from 2060 writes to the class. What changed? Which decisions made today mattered?
• The second letter is a simple way to practice backcasting: walking from a future back to the present.

Assessing learning

Getting it right matters less than the quality of the reasoning. Some guiding questions:

• Does the student separate the observed fact from its interpretation?
• Do they imagine more than one possible future?
• Do they explain which signals or trends support each future?
• Do they recognize which decisions today bring each future closer or push it away?

With Mirai

Mirai lets students do the signal walk with their phones: each one captures signals, gets a reading in three questions, and the class brings them together to imagine futures. Accounts are for students aged 14 and over; with younger students, the activity is done without accounts. If you would like to use it with your group, write to us from the organizations page.