STEM Studio ’23: Learning Space Design

Scholarships Now Available!

Through a generous donation, we have a limited number of scholarships available for STEM Studio design workshops. Use promo code SS2023 when you register.

What if we gave students a chance to see that their ideas can make a difference in the world?

What if we started at a place they all know, where they spend their days, where they could see the impact of their work?

What if we asked them to rethink the design of spaces within their school?

In collaboration with UWM’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP) and  Center for Student Experience and Talent (CSET), we’re lining up industry and community community partners to support a multi-year effort aimed at building a deeper and more diverse pool of talent coming out of K-12 with an interest in architecture and related fields. Our initial experiment this spring put 128 architecture students in service learning roles  with 15 Milwaukee area schools. The UWM students used that experience to develop design proposals for the schools they worked in to address issues and opportunities they uncovered.

For the 2023-24 school year, we want to expand this model to engage middle and high school students in a parallel challenge.

Objectives

The goal for these sessions is well defined program to engage students in thinking about how spaces within their school might better meet the needs of students, teachers, or staff.  The key output of this effort is a program guide for a community-engaged project that will run across 6-10 schools over the 2023-24 school year. The program guide will detail:

• Key project events (kick-off, review, showcase) that all schools will participate in
• Field experiences participating schools might leverage to inform and support the work of students and teachers engaged in the project
• Community partners available to support the work of students and teachers
• How SARUP students can support schools and teachers in this work
• On-going support/coaching for participating teachers
• Artifacts students will produce as part of the effort
• Where and how project activities connect back to curriculum standards

Schedule

Who Should Attend

The project will target Milwaukee area middle and high school students. Sign up if you:

• value in engaging students in design thinking, connecting them to industry expertise, and taking on a real world project that matters to them,
• see the learning opportunities possible through engaging students in this work,
• see where this could happen within a class you teach or with students you work with.

Participating in the vision and design for the program ensures that your goals and needs are reflected in the structure for the project and the supports available during implementation.

This workshop is part of the ‘Summer Camp for Teachers’, STEM Studio