How might Shedd Aquarium connect with young adults across the world, sparking compassion, curiosity, and conservation for the aquatic animal world?

Empowering Climate Warriors

Shedd Aquarium sought to extend its impact beyond its traditional geographic footprint, with a focus on engaging a younger, global audience. The goal was to create innovative strategies that would increase engagement, helping Shedd to spark a deeper sense of compassion and curiosity for marine life, while advancing their conservation efforts. The challenge lay in translating Shedd’s unique offerings into strategies that would scale digitally and connect meaningfully with young adults both locally and worldwide.

New Views partnered with Shedd Aquarium to co-create innovative solutions through a hands-on, collaborative process. We facilitated a workshop that brought together young adults to generate ideas and co-design experiences to help Shedd connect with their communities.

Qualitative Interviews

To ground the work in real-world perspectives, we conducted 1:1 interviews with both Shedd employees and young adults across the US. These conversations surfaced critical insights about current challenges, opportunities, and audience mindsets, forming the foundation for the co-creation workshop.

Co-Creation Workshop

We hosted a highly interactive co-creation workshop with young adults to ideate and prototype their ideas. Alongside Shedd employees, participants engaged in design thinking exercises, brainstorming over 350 ideas for how Shedd Aquarium could connect with and inspire young audiences. The energy and creativity of the group helped surface bold new concepts that blended entertainment, education, and community-building.

Prototype Testing

Following the workshop, we selected 3–5 promising concepts and built low-fidelity prototypes to quickly bring the ideas to life. These prototypes were shared with additional young adults for testing and feedback. Through iterative rounds of refinement, we gained valuable insights into what resonated most with the target audience—shaping solutions that felt authentic, engaging, and action-driven.

The Impact

  • Diverse Idea Generation

    Over 350 ideas were generated, ranging from immersive virtual experiences to interactive online campaigns, designed to appeal to young adults and encourage curiosity about marine life.

  • Concept Development

    3-5 of the most promising ideas were transformed into low-fidelity prototypes that were tested and iterated with further feedback from young adult audiences.

  • Young Adult Engagement

    By centering young adults in the design process and leveraging co-creation to generate digital engagement ideas, Shedd Aquarium successfully tapped into a new audience and generated meaningful connections.