Quest 1: Floating City · Floating City Length of Quest 6-9 wk course (15-23 90 min. sessions)...

About HouseStories UrbanEngineers: Students embark on a global journey, creating teams and knowledge to build an adaptive and resilient city for a particular geographic location. They learn to apply systems thinking models to develop ideas and concepts about how lifestyles, infrastructures and technologies need to be adapted for different geographies, resources and climates.

Quest 1: Floating City Related Quests: Mars City, Arid City, Vertical Garden City

Overview

Mission UrbanEngineers

Quest Floating City

Length of Quest 6-9 wk course(15-23 90 min. sessions)

Difficulty Level Grades 6-8

Badges Climate, Geography, Lifestyle, Mobility, Density, Resources

21st Century Skills Creativity & Critical Thinking

Quest Summary

Where a major river trading route nears the sea, the residents of a fishing village decided to build a

small dam. The dam keeps the route viable and their small houses and farms above water during the

wettest times of the year. Now the town is feeling a growth spurt coming. Because the dam created

new drylands, the Mayor hopes to grow the town further, and possibly build more canals and dams.

But the man-made waterways are creating unexpected changes to the marshy habitat, as well as to the existence of the people and wildlife within it. What is at stake? As experts in coastal cities, you are

called upon by the town to work with their residents to make a city that can can last for generations.

We break ground in two weeks. Time to wade right in - no time to stay dry!

1) VALUES - Based on your current experience and knowledge, establish a set of conditions (basic “ingredients”) that outline your values, as well as those of your crew and class.

2) BIG IDEAS - As a full team (class), you will explore the purpose of a city and the systems within it.

3) DESIGNING - Investigate the challenges and opportunities presented by climate, geography, and resources of the island to support these conditions. Create a City Charter defining Big Ideas and Guiding Principles. Invent a product that answers a need for your city. Build your city. After making city-wide decisions as a class, you will zoom in and focus on designing a community where your crew will live. Investigating a spectrum of design choices, your crew (4-5 designers) will envision and build a community within the city that contributes to the Big Ideas and Guiding Principles.

4) ADAPTING - How will future generations continue to live well on the coast, based on your actions today? Specifically, how will people 30 years from now be able to sustain themselves and are your Big Ideas and Guiding Principles resilient?

5) LOOKING FORWARD - Examine the outcomes of the design choices you made, compare/contrast your community with others, draw conclusions to share. What is life like in your city? How is it similar or different from what you envision for people in your hometown?

©HouseStories® 2019, v2.0 contact: [email protected] !1

Understanding by Design

Essential Questions

- How does a city sustain itself for generations? (Resilience)

- How does a city absorb, or react to change? (Complex Systems)

- What kind of consequences will the actions of humans and their technology have on the overall success and feel of the city? (Emergence)

Enduring Understandings

Cities are ever-changing places shaped by interconnected systems.

The resilience of a human habitat depends on how we decide to shape it.

Standards

(See State-Level Fulfillment in Appendix A)

College, Career and Civic Life Geo1.6-8 Construct maps to represent and explain the spatial patterns of cultural andenvironmental characteristicsGeo 6.6-8 Explain how the physical and human characteristics of places and regions areconnected to human identities and cultures.His 3.6-8 Use questions generated about individuals and groups to analyze why they, and the developments they shaped, are seen as historically significant.His 10.6-8 Detect possible limitations in the historical record based on evidence collectedfrom different kinds of historical sources.His 14.6-8 Explain multiple causes and effects of events and developments in the past.

Next Generation Science Standards MS-ETS1-2 Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determinehow well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

English Language ArtsRI.6.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well asinferences drawn from the text.RI.6.7 Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.RI.6.9 Compare and contrast one author's presentation of events with that of another (e.g., amemoir written by and a biography on the same person).WHST.6.1.A Introduce claim(s) about a topic or issue, acknowledge and distinguish theclaim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.WHST.6-8.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, andstyle are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Core Art StandardsVA:Cr1.1.6a Combine concepts collaboratively to generate innovative ideas for creating art.VA:Cr2.1.6a Demonstrate openness in trying new ideas, materials, methods, and approachesin making works of art and design.VA:Re.7.1.6a Identify and interpret works of art or design that reveal how people live aroundthe world and what they value.VA:Cn11.1.6a Analyze how art reflects changing times, traditions, resources, and culturalUses.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SWYkZLP2dr7t01HSU54xZJ6RUE1sihacOIyaP5HyOzM/edit?usp=sharing

Systems Thinking

- A. Resilience: How does a city sustain itself for several generations?- B. Complex Systems: How does a city absorb, or react to change?- C. Emergence: What kind of consequences will the actions of humans and their technology

have on the overall success and feel of the city?

Knowledge Climate:

● Climate is inextricably linked to the way humans live, driving the use of technologies and the design of cities that support our way of life. Smart cities create technologies / ways of life that harness / work with the existing climate conditions rather than ignore them. A city designed in harmony with its climate creates an efficient and holistic human environment (examples: solar/hydro/wind energy, rain water harvesting, climate-adapted construction methods).

Geography● The ecological systems of a given geography include functions (hydrological or

biological) that generate its observable, physical, life-sustaining, condition. ● Interventions in any given site may have impacts that change this condition.● Human settlement impacts the geography of cities in certain as well as uncertain ways

that have yet to be observed.● In the face of rapid change, there are no easy or perfect design answers- only

strategies that may be evaluated relative to one’s metrics or frame of time and place. Resources:

● Each resource in a system has constraints, inputs & outputs and can be defined by its Life Cycle

● Small changes in a system can lead to large changes with networked effects. Key words: Interconnectedness, overuse, balance, resource/product life-cycle, metabolism.

Lifestyle:● Collaboration and Competition are both modes of system development that have

different strengths and weaknesses, and are selected for based on environmental conditions.

● Both technology and behavior (ie. culture or lifestyle, or the rules that govern society) have the potential to shape the form of a city. Examples include: personal autos/roads/lack of public transport, green lawns/water use, big houses/energy use, recycling programs/waste reduction, etc.

Skills - Students will be able to…

- Construct maps that isolate spatial patterns or characteristics, as well as show impact on spatial considerations in the decision-making process. Geo1.6-8

- Design using a systems-thinking framework MS-ETS1-2 - Construct a story with spatial construct (eg. story map) - RI.6.7 - WHST.6.1.A Introduce claim(s) about a topic or issue, acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s)

from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically. - Identify a common mental framework in order to obtain consensus - Document a system (Feedback Loops / Causal Maps / Leverage Points) and relationships

within- Evaluate the different outcomes of incremental vs abrupt or sweeping changes


Daily Lesson Plans Phase 1-5 following the student facing Urban Engineers Passport

Phase 1 (3 sessions, 90-min. each) VALUES

Based on your current experience and knowledge, establish a set of conditions (basic “ingredients” that describe your values, as well as those of your crew and class.

In this Phase, students will reflect on their daily lives and identify their basic needs and core values, then determine which of those are important to the citizens in their community, city, nation, and ultimately, the world.

Essential questions in this Phase - ● What are my basic needs? (Engage)● How do my basic needs compare to others in my class, my community, the nation, the world?

(Explore)● What are my skills? How do these skills benefit me, my community, the world? (Explain)● What ethical responsibilities are most important to preserving our core values? (Extend)● How can I design a city to meet the needs of the people who inhabit it? (Evaluate)

Learning Experiences & Activities 1. A Day in My Life, flow mapping exercise (90 min)

- design journal, collage material, pencil, markers

Assessments Journal entries, individual

2. Self to World, diagramming exercise (90 min) - design journal, pencil

Journal entries, individual

3. About My Crew, infographic design (90 min) - blank story cards, 24x36” butcher paper,

collage material, pencil, markers

Poster, groupSummary presentation, group

Differentiation Strategies

(-) Allow students to work in teams to determine community basic needs. (-)Student may draw or use collage material found in print media to complete their graphic organizer.(-)Student will be given various images that represent daily wants and need. Student will classify which items are wants and which ar needs in a T-chart. (-)When given cause and effect scenarios students will be able to match a cultures build environment decision (i.e. clothes, dwelling, etc) with the correct correct climate, geography, and lifestyle card.

(+)Students will create a storyboard with written description and illustrations to describe their daily lives. (+)Student will research a different culture and complete a venn diagram comparing the identifying traits of each culture and what they have in common. (+)Students will design a cause and effect matching game to illustrate the differences in cultures (i.e. clothes, housing, etc) are determined by the climate, geography, and lifestyle of the region.

Materials

Passport Student Guide8.5x11” bifolded booklet, 62 pages Design Journalblank composition book, standard 9.75x7.50” Blank Story Cards Handout8.5x11” printsWheel Handout11x17” prints

pencil, markers 36” butcher paper roll collage material


Phase 2 (3-5 sessions, 90-min. each) BIG IDEAS

As a full team (class), you will explore the purpose of a city and the systems within it.

In this Phase, students will explore city as ecosystem using a nearby plot of urban greenspace as an example. In making observations about the place using knowledge about ecosystems, students will determine systems that exist in their environment and how they relate to one another. Students will postulate on why or why not the systems were adequately designed.

Essential questions in this Phase -

● What is a city? (Engage)● What does a city do?(Explore)● What key elements must a city have to meet the needs of the humans who inhabit it?● Does a city qualify as an ecosystem? Why or why not? (Explore/Explain) ● What makes any ecosystem successful or able to stand the test of time? (resilient)

(Explore/Explain)● How will cities evolve into resilient (eco)systems for the people that live there?

(Evaluate)

Learning Experiences & Activities

1. Map An Ecosystem, mapping exercise (90-135 min) - design journal, pencil

Assessments

Journal entries, individual

2. “How does change happen?” systems-thinking exercises (Collect & Cluster, Feedback Loops, Causal Map tools adapted from Quest Design Pack) (90-225 min)

- butcher paper, pencil, sticky notes

Presentation per phase of activity, group

3. Growing Your Frame, group discussion (60 min) - design journal, pencil, blank story cards

Discussion, group

4. Organize Your Ideas, synthesis exercise (30 min) - Story cards, butcher paper, markers, tape

Wheel Organizer Poster, group (updated periodically through following Phase)


(-) Provide a map of the school.(-) I do, we do, you do format for flowchart activity with prescribed systems for the students to evaluate on their own. (+)Write a letter to administration that identifies an ineffective school system with a solution to better it. (-)Limit the exercise to the grade level, thinking of each classroom as a neighborhood or community and the grade level as a small city. (+)Illustrate an action plan and present it to the class.

Materials

Passport Student Guide8.5x11” bifolded booklet, 62 pages Design Journalblank composition book, standard 9.75x7.50” Blank Story Cards Handouts8.5x11” prints

pencil 36” butcher paper sticky notes


Phase 3 (5-7 sessions, 90-min. each) DESIGNING

Investigate how climate, geography, resources, lifestyle, density, and mobility, are influential factors in designing a sustainable city. Together, build your city. After making big city-wide decisions as a class, you will zoom in and focus on designing a community with your crew.

Essential Questions in this Phase - ● What is it like on the coastal plain? (Engage)● How is the context of the coastal plain different from that of your city? (Explore)● What might be some of the challenges your city faces on the coastal plain? (Explain)

Learning Experiences & Activities ** Unique to this city **(+) “Go Further,” Extension

1. A Whole New World (90 min) - design journal, story cards, wheel organizer on

butcher paper, pencil, tape

Assessments

Wheel Organizer poster, group(updated continuously through Phase)

K-W-L Chart, individualJournal entry, individual

Discussion, group

2. Let Go (15 min) - story cards

Discussion, group

3. Invent a Product (30 min + 90 min at home) - recycled materials, glue, tape, markers

Product Summary, individual Product Mock-up, individual

Design Your City (180-450 min, multiple rounds) - design journal, story cards, wheel organizer on

butcher paper, area map printouts, pencil, tape 4. Climate in Mind (climate) (15-45 min)5. A Place for a City (geography) (30-60 min)6. Life in the Flood Zone** (60 min or at-home) 7. In the Raw (resources) (15 min)8. Interconnections (resources) (45 min)

(For a compressed schedule, you may ask crews to “divide-and-conquer” the next 3 exercises over 45 min)

9. Everyday Culture (lifestyle) (45 min)10. Getting Around (mobility) (45 min)11. Qualities of a Place (density & typology) (45 min)12. City Charter (30-90 min)13 & 14. On the Ground / Take Form (180 min)

- build templates, area map printouts, paper, scissors, tape, recycled materials

Class generated rubric, individual

Concept Model, group

After each round -

Reflect on the city you have created - 1. How did you design your city to face the

challenges of building a city on the coast?2. What is working well? 3. What could be improved or might not stand up

to the test of time? Why?4. What are the Big Ideas and Guiding

Principles?



(-)Students conduct research with teacher provided, leveled print media and internet resources.(-)Students complete Coastal Plain vs My Hometown graphic organizer with descriptors provided by teacher.(-)Students self-assess product design with a class generated rubric.

(+)Students complete Coastal Plain vs My Hometown graphic organizer with presentation material provide by other students.(+)Students create a product design details card with written explanations to justify their design choices.(+)Have students apply for careers in product design.(+)Students design a marketing campaign for their product.

(+) Do it Yourself activities

Materials

Passport Student Guide8.5x11” bifolded booklet, 62 pages Design Journalblank composition book, standard 9.75x7.50” Blank Story Cards Handout8.5x11” printsArea Maps 8.5x11” black/white printed map pieces Build Templates 8.5x11” black/white prints

36” butcher paper recycled materials pencil paper scissors tape

Phase 4 (2-5 sessions, 90-min. each) ADAPTING TO THE COAST

A series of changes and challenges test the resilience of your community and city. How well does the city hold up? Make changes and elaborate based on the new insights gathered from each challenge.

Essential Questions:● What preventative measures can be taken to prepare your city for potential challenges?

(Extend)● How will future generations continue to live in your city, based on your actions today?

Specifically, how will people 30 years from now be able to sustain themselves? (Extend) ● How do Big Ideas and Guiding Principles stay the same, change or adapt with time?


Change Makes You Stronger, design evaluation and elaboration exercise(multiple rounds, ea. 30 min+)

Assessments

Class generated rubric, individual

Concept Model, group

After each round-

Reflect on the city you have created - 1. How did you design your city to face the

challenges of building a city on the coastal plain?

2. What is working well? 3. What could be improved or might not stand up

to the test of time? Why?4. Are your Big Ideas and Guiding Principles

resilient?


Materials Passport Student Guide8.5x11” bi-folded booklet, 62 pages Design Journalblank composition book, standard 9.75x7.50” Area Maps 8.5x11” black/white printed map pieces

36” butcher paper recycled materials pencil paper scissors tape

Phase 5 (2-5 sessions, 90-min. each)LOOKING BACK

Examine the outcomes of the design choices you made, compare/contrast your community with others, draw conclusions to bring back to your hometown.

Essential Questions in this Phase - ● In what ways have you designed your city to be resilient? (Evaluate)● What is life like in your the city you designed? How is it similar or different from the ones you

envision for people in your hometown? ● What lessons will you take back to your hometown?


Interactive Storytelling (90-360 min)

Assessments

Exhibition of Interactive Narratives, group

Peer Evaluation (90 min) Class generated rubric, group & individual

Materials Passport Student Guide8.5x11” bi-folded booklet, 62 pages Design Journalblank composition book, standard 9.75x7.50”

pencil

(optional) computer / laptops w/ internet access AR/VR equipment


Quest 1: Floating City · Floating City Length of Quest 6-9 wk course (15-23 90 min. sessions)...

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Transcript of Quest 1: Floating City · Floating City Length of Quest 6-9 wk course (15-23 90 min. sessions)...