Our December Collab Lab focused on student run enterprises. We were interested in the kinds of experiences participants hoped students might gain through participation in a student run enterprise.
Our process for the session took a slightly different approach, starting with how we wanted to students to talk about their experience. Our goal was statements that demonstrate a high level of engagement, but are also evocative enough that we could start to imagine how a student run enterprise might foster such an experience.
The initial brainstorming process generated a long list of experience statements, including:
“I worked really hard because the results really mattered”
“This program helped me find my passion.”
“The work here is important to me personally.”
“I’m glad I can be myself, express my mind freely.”
“I got to know myself better.”
“I grew as a person.”
“It was my favorite class ever.”
“I never thought I could do this.”
(with pride) “This is my project!”
“I chose to stay because of this.”
“I was able to make decisions that allowed me to take risks and learn from mistakes to help our business be more successful.”
“I learned how to fail.”
“There are real consequences for my actions in this enterprises.”
“I felt more empowered than ever.”
“This experience allowed me to really own my learning and let me take something I am interested in to a level I couldn’t have done without this experience.”
“I have a voice and I have value.”
“I understand my role.”
“I am proud of what exists here.”
“I am valuable to this business.”
“This experience helped me see how a business could not only help me but help the community.”
“The experiences I’ve had make me think about what I can do to help my community.”
“This experience allowed me to grow as a student leader and collaborate with others.”
“I have a better understanding of money, how it is created, and whether or not it has value.”
“I used the skills I acquired to further my knowledge and abilities.”
“I remembered doing this activity in class and could apply the technique learned to help myself.”
“This helped me learn how to apply my skills in the real world.”
“As a person, it made me make better decisions. As a member of my community it made me open my eyes and grow up.”
“It helped me figure out what I want to do with my life.”
With that list in hand, we asked participants to form small teams to talk through ideas for how a student run enterprise might help students have one or more of those experiences. Our second process change was to have these ideas expressed as “What if we…” questions. We wanted to see if that led to more expansive thinking. Here’s what they came up with:
Individuality Initiative
We hope students might say…
“I learned to fail”
“This program helped me find my passion”
“I have a voice. I have value.”
What if we…
created an environment where students weren’t as fearful of failing, but instead were encouraged to learn from their failures ;
created a survey or interview process to identify appropriate enterprises and their roles within them;
encouraged an education system that catered to helping students find their passion instead of telling them what they should be?
Failing with Open Minds
We hope students might say…
“I learned to fail”
“I found my passion”
What if we…
allowed kids to fail;
allowed kids to pursue their passion and explore themselves;
sourced innovation from kids?
encouraged all to fail of front of an authentic, receptive audience with an open mind while pursuing a curiosity which can become a passion after taking a risk?
Sustainable Futures/Business with an Impact
We hope students might say…
“This experience connects passion to community and allows us to thing about our impact”
What if we…
challenge them to make a product or service that helps the environment or community;
challenges them to create a business or product that reduces their impact on the environment;
create a business that would help their specific neighborhood issue?
Change Agent
We hope students might say…
“I feel more empowered than ever”
What if …
this purpose already means something to me;
I am interested to lead;
we make the community better?
Milwaukee Made
We hope students might say…
“It was so great to work with other students of all ages and to make money and learn how to be successful in a business.”
What if we…
break down barriers to students creating a business;
we worked with an elementary school, high school, and college to create a store/experience for students to learn from each other to make a real business;
raised confidence and creativity through working with college professors and students in collaboration;
used the new Marquette space in Schlitz Park to sell the produces of student enterprises and employ high school students to work in the store/paid students for the products they sell;
collaborate with Marquette, MATC, Pathways High & Golda Meir to do so?
Try – Fail – Reflect (repeat)
We hope students might say…
“I learned how to fail.”
What if we…
take time to reflect after failure;
normalized failure;
push students outside of their comfort zone?
Thanks to The Commons for providing the space and to our featured participants for sharing their expertise and ideas:
Our November Collab Lab focused on opportunities to engage students around green infrastructure. We asked participants to brainstorm ideas around different types of green infrastructure as they are designed, installed or in service, using the inventory provided within the City of Milwaukee’s Green Infrastructure Plan. From there we paired up educators with representatives from industry, higher-ed, non-profits, and local government and had them flesh out a specific idea in greater detail.
Here’s what they came up with:
Identify targets sites for green infrastructure
Identify vacant lots in the students’ neighborhood to active and install stormwater trees, gardens, community art.
Green infrastructure targeted:
Rain gardens
Stormwater trees
Native landscaping
Regenerative stormwater conveyance
Greenways & land conservation
Phases targeted:
Design
Installation
Desired experience for students:
Mapping GIS
Think about neighborhood & community
This is worth it!
Evidence and argument
Budgeting and finance
Understanding different land use/space factors
History of the area, why a particular lot is vacant
Cultural experience of neighborhood as an influence to art
Durability of art
What students will need:
Mapping software
Data
Facilitator/guides to support — experts, & exemplars
Documentation and presentation skills
Who students should meet as part of this work:
UWM School of Architecture & Urban Planning
Youth Council @ City Hall
Pocket parks tour
How students might share their work:
Video
Podcast
Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Story Map
Social media/website
Share with community service organizations, the experts that helped them.
Storytelling– “What did I learn”
Art within Native Landscaping
Design art projects within a native landscape
Green infrastructure targeted:
Native Landscaping
Desired experience for students:
Cross curricula – art/science/math
Exploring new things
Youth voice/leadership
New materials
Mentoring
Culture
What students will need:
Guidance/leadership to understand and get excited
Research on native landscapes, sustainable materials (what they are, why they are important)
Location, calendar, transportation
Who students should meet as part of this work:
Partner with college students
Landscape/gardening experts
How students might share their work:
Community grand opening, with presentation by youth
Garden Gallery (art) night
Low tech watering systems
Create olla pots or other system to water gardens when students/volunteers may not be available to do so.
Green infrastructure targeted:
Rain barrels & cisterns
Phases targeted:
Design
Installation
In Use
Desired experience for students:
Research the history of olla pots
Design a system where rain barrels fill the pots (how many rain barrels?)
Calculate how much water might be captured
Determine the size of pots that might be necessary for a particular garden or space
Monitor gardens to make sure the system is working
Compare performance at different times of year
Evaluate how the long the system can run without support
Calibrate the outflow rate from rain barrels so that it is most effective
What students will need:
History of olla pots & agriculture
Math — planning for the # of pots for the area
Science — expected rainfall for the area, ecology, human impact
Communication skills — share what they did
Reading & writing
Arts — decorating barrels, making their own pots @ schools with kiln [can we make our own rain barrels?]
Who students should meet as part of this work:
Community connections for support in monitoring
Environmental engineers
fresh coast guardians from MMSD
Teens Grow Greens for different ideas on irrigation
Pottery infrastructure
How students might share their work:
video story
Present @ Science Strikes Back? [Escuela Verde?]
Share after a full growing season for data collection
Share publicly — news, radio, social media, USDA
Butterfly Garden
Reclaim paved area of “playground” for stormwater management and wildlife habitat restoration.
Green infrastructure targeted:
Rain gardens
Native landscaping
Bioswales
Depaving
Soil Amendments
Phases targeted:
Design
Installation
In use
What students should experience:
Design process — native plants, permaculture, pollinator habitat, education of younger students
Self directed personalized learning
What students will need:
Research skills
Curiosity
Information sources
Access to professionals/experts
How students might share their work:
Photo voice
Signage
Newsletters & written media
Permeable paving meets math
Use installation of permeable paving as a chance to exercise mathematical thinking.
Green infrastructure targeted:
Permeable paving
What students should experience:
Apply math concepts (geometry, algebra, etc) when designing permeable walkway through a park
Art, design, science of materials
Exploration of career paths
Presentation of findings
What students will need:
Access to practitioners
Manipulation/manufacturing of materials
Best practices for fitting pieces together
Permeable paving vs alternatives
Cost data for possible choices — installation, maintenance, long term costs
Who students should meet as part of this work:
Practitioners: non profits, contractors, college student mentors
MMSD
Artists
Landscapers
Tours of UWM School of Freshwater Sciences, GWC, MMSD, etc.)
How students might share their work:
Green Students Conference
Opportunity for students across schools/districts to present GI projects to each other
Green job fair — in part, the conference could be funded by exhibitors (engineers, landscapers, etc.) who do a job fair
GI Scavenger hunt
Inventory and map green infrastructure within students’ community; identify where water is coming from; find as many examples as possible, create a map using GIS software
What students should experience:
The possibilities that exist in different areas
Problem solving using mapping software
Ability to visualize things on a map
What students will need:
Mapping software and an introduction to using it
General location for finding green infrastructure
Lesson on green infrastructure installations and interventions
Who students should meet as part of this work:
Students who did bigger project
How students might share their work:
Story map
Water quality assessment
Assess the water quality in the local community
Green infrastructure targeted:
Rain barrels & cisterns
Rain gardens
Soil Amendments
What students should experience:
Data analysis
Hands on development of project
Ownership & involvement
Success & Impact
What students will need:
Space
Native plants
Raspberry Pi computer
Types of soil
Types of compost
Gravel
Sensors for moisture/contamination
Water quality test kits
Who students should meet as part of this work:
Upham Woods — digital observation kits
Sweetwater – Adopt A Storm Drain
River Keepers
Plastic Free MKE
How students might share their work:
Social media
Murals
Logos
Mottos
Peer to peer education — teach others to continue project
Brand it
Give it legitimacy
Greening Alleys
Create a list of priorities for green alleys near a school, identify and collect the data to use in prioritizing the alleys.
Green infrastructure targeted:
Green streets and alleys
What students should experience:
Surveying the neighborhood
Identifying improvements and analyzing lowest cost estimates of putting in improvements
Communication of survey, improvements,
What students will need:
Access to expertise
Computers/data sets
Estimation software/templates
Who students should meet as part of this work:
MMSD — Lisa Sasso, Bre Plier, Nadia Vogt
DPW — Nader Jabber
WDNE — Ben Benninghoff, Samantha Katt
Civil Engineers — Justin Hegerty (Reflo), Kara Koch (SSE)
Communications specialist
How students might share their work:
Entering the project in a competition
Via website/communication pieces they design
Presenting at a conference
Presenting to politicians/city administrators
Intervention as Art
Create an environmental solution that is a form of art
Green infrastructure targeted:
Rain barrels & cisterns [start here but then see where it may connect to something else]
What students should experience:
Allow students to develop creative problem solving, apply multiple disciplines (math, science, etc.) in order to create a solution
Allow student to assess the financial components/cost of implementing the art
What students will need:
Location to meet
Access to technology and materials
Sample size materials to create prototype of artwork
Transportation
Design expertise (art coaches/artists)
Self determination
Who students should meet as part of this work:
Artists
Engineers
Government officials & leaders
Foundations
Contractors (in trades)
How students might share their work:
Social media
Press engagements
Unveiling events
Presentations
GI target map
Map neighborhood to identify opportunities to install green infrastructure
Green infrastructure targeted:
Rain barrels & cisterns
Native landscaping
Bioswales
Green streets & alleys
Soil amendments
Phase targeted:
Design
What students should experience:
Gain understanding of neighborhood and existing conditions
Gain understanding of community stakeholders
Build researching skills (reputable data)
Become informed skeptics
Gain understanding of types & applications for green infrastructure
What students will need:
Background in types of GI
Mapping support — map individual neighborhoods, add all to larger map
Critical thinking/perseverance
People skills — coaching/modeling
Arrange stakeholder meetings/presentations
Watershed locations
Who students should meet as part of this work:
Reflo
Eco Office
Environmental Engineers
SFS
Community organizations in neighborhood
How students might share their work:
Social media posts
Health fair at North Division
MPS STEM Fair
Heat Islands
Monitor/change heat island effect through interactive materials
Green infrastructure targeted:
Rain gardens
Native landscaping
Bioswales
Stormwater trees
Depaving
Green streets & alleys
Greenways & land conservation
Green roofs
Phase targeted:
In use
What students should experience:
Gain an appreciation for environmental awareness
Visually see how GI can reduce heat island effect
What students will need:
Thermal imaging – drone
Students map with “hot spots”
Identify areas that would benefit from green infrastructure
What could be done– trees plants, gardens
See how different GI might reduce heat
Who students should meet as part of this work:
Engineering firms with surveyors
College students who work with GIS
How students might share their work:
Presentation to town, city, community
Design plan
From the areas identified, have students go to companies to implement or advertise their action plan
Designing School Building Projects
Allow students to design landscape areas; promote mentor-ship to have older students work with younger students; during construction, kids can monitor waste vs recycled materials
Green infrastructure targeted:
Rain gardens
Native landscaping
Stormwater trees
Soil amendments
Phase targeted:
Design
Installation
In use
What students should experience:
Sense of ownership, cooperation, achievement
Growing consumable product
Science
What students will need:
Planting science and how to nurture
Planting buddies
Who students should meet as part of this work:
Contractors
Landscapers
Engineers
Business relationships for recycling
Farmers
How students might share their work:
Through food on table
Science & math through recycling
Personal development through succeeding in the process
Watershed Challenge
How can we positively effect the watershed in a way that will create buy in and support from the community
Green infrastructure targeted:
Rain barrels & cisterns
Rain gardens
Stormwater trees
Soil amendments
Phases targeted:
Design
What students should experience:
Career connections
Get out in the field
Community connections – picking up trash connected to effects on watershed, talking to community, brainstorming community problems
Urban water cycle – treatment plant
Science/environmental connection — labs to “see it”
Interdisciplinary — data, writing, technology
What students will need:
Background knowledge– getting off campus, maps science
Access to to local experts
Community connections — talking to people in neighborhood, observing the location
Structure/system for the design part of the project
Who students should meet as part of the effort:
Water school
Washington Park Urban Ecology Center
Storm Water Solutions
Engineers that design infrastructure — public & private
Go to a school that did a similar project
Groundworks MKE
Milwaukee Water Commons
Reflo
MMSD (Christina Taddy)
River Keeper
Plastic Free MKE
Sweetwater (Adopt a Storm Drain)
Upham Woods
Artful Capstone
Bring math, science, and art together for artful landscaping solutions; understanding the design process
Green infrastructure targeted:
Rain barrels & cisterns
Permeable pavement
Green Roofs [hotels & apartments]
What students should experience:
Awareness of environment
Seeing project through to completion
Impact on community
Puzzle solving
Design process
Connecting things to their everyday life
Opportunities to see career options
What students will need:
Time
Parental support
Access to opportunities
Mentoring
Inspiration
Pragmatic examples
Connections to their lives
Opportunity to take risks
Who students should meet as part of this work:
Mentors
Government officials
Home owners
Community members
How students might share their work:
Authentic audience
Other students around the world through
Tik Tok
20 20
15s Film
Pachakucha
Thanks to The Commons for providing the space and to our featured participants for sharing their expertise and ideas:
Catherine Bronikowski — Math Dept. Chair, North Division High School
While MATC students were doing fieldwork to create a survey of the coal handling area for our Zoo Train Challenge, they took the time to shoot some 3D photos. Those images are now available on Google Maps, and give a good look at the site our Zoo Train students are focused on.
To view other images in the series, pull up the Zoo on Google Maps, and click the icon of the little person in the lower right corner of your browser
Over the past two days, We Energies hosted four tours of their coal handling facility in Oak Creek for students in our Zoo Train Challenge. A team of five from We Energies walked students through the procedures they follow to safely store and move coal from when it arrives by train to when it is used in the power plant. On their tour of the facility, students were able to see the equipment and systems in use.
What students learned about how to manage coal on a very large scale, they will now bring to bear as they think through how to revise the coal handling process at the Zoo.
Our 4th season of Collab Labs kicked off on October 10th with a focus on building skilled trades talent. We began the discussion by building an inventory of the skills we’d like to see students develop. These fell into two broad categories:
Technical Skills
Design Skills
Read blueprints & technical drawings
Fine motor skills/hand-eye coordination
Math and measurement
Budgeting/Understanding job costs
General understanding of construction trades
Equipment/resource planning
Soft Skills
Creativity/Innovation/Problem solving
Fail Fast
Safety
Ability to take constructive criticism
Ability to take direction
Self Advocacy
Self discipline/integrity/follow through/show up ready to work
Self confidence
Determination/grit
Collaboration/Interpersonal skills within a team
Communication skills
Ability to listen
Willingness to learn/ask thoughtful question
From there we asked each discussion group to talk through experiences that do or could provide opportunities to build those skills. Here’s what they came up with:
Build2Learn Camp $500 stipend for summer workshop
European model – apprentices
Engage employers – job shadow
Inspire/Awe – Makerspace Home Depot creative space
Intentionally incorporate soft skills into lessons
Provide high interest projects
Bring industry speakers into the classroom
Real world applications with purpose – e.g. 3D prosthetics
Mentorships
Teamwork: moving a project to completion
Presenting/exhibiting craft work
Building confidence with no or low risk simulations.
Leverage connections and take them to scale
Address skills gaps with “it takes a village” perspective
Get professionals into classrooms
They can learn from students
Talk with students, not down to them
Our final step was to have each group take those ideas, talk through what a program might look like, and share that out with the entire group. Here’s where they landed:
Project Start to finish real world application
Build a house
Bring in industry
Have mentors
Engage employers
Build soft skills
Build technical skills
Goal is to have job ready workers, provide apprenticeships, job opportunities.
Identify industry partner/employer
Ask “What do you need from us?”
Identify what workforce needs exist
Identify training/skills needed
Company sponsored projects
Materials or time
Interviews of
the company
the student
Interdisciplinary/project based learning
Working with other schools/districts
Protocols
Feedback models – Hard on content/soft on person
Leverage technology
Skype team meetings
Drone/webcams of projects progressing
Build excitement about upcoming technologies
Early Hands-on Exposure
Youth apprenticeships
Out of comfort zone
Peer mentorship
Self-realization/mediation
Options (electives)
Students: Littles – early exposure
Education Workplace: Welcoming anti-racist, data-driven, performance based
What’s needed to move forward: Looking past personal bias, equal access to opportunities, a cultural shift
Industry-owned Youth Apprenticeships
IDing under-served population
Mapped to skilled trades values and skills
Bringing the industry straight to the families
Thanks to CG Schmidt for sponsoring our food and beverages for the evening, The Commons for providing the space, and to our featured participants for sharing their expertise and ideas,
Peter Graven – Earth Science/ Life Science/ Robotics, Deer Creek Intermediate School (St Francis)
Craig Griffie – Technology Education, Brown Deer High School
Chloe Smith is the UWM PhD student leading the English classes working piloting our Career Interviews project. She’s published a blog post about the experience here
Things are off to a good start:
I’m blown away by how engaged these students have been, and how willing they are to work through a research process that, for most of them, is entirely new. They’re approaching these interviews—and the prospect of the research that will come after—with enthusiasm and creativity.
This year 140 students from 11 area schools will participate in our Zoo Train Challenge– redesign the coal handling process used for the Zoo’s steam locomotives. At yesterday’s kick-off event, students had a chance to visit the site, see what it’s like to lift a bushel bucket of coal, and meet their peers from other schools.
Before we went into a Q & A session, we sat students at tables where they got to know peers from other schools and worked together to identify the questions they wanted to see answered at the session. That process was led by Dr. David Howell from MSOE, who brought along 13 MSOE student volunteers to help facilitate the work at each table.
While students went through that work, teachers and industry advisers had a chance to meet and talk through how they will run the project in their classrooms. Two New Berlin students from last year’s challenge joined us for the event– one, who went to the school board for permission to retake the engineering class so she could participate this year, and a second who is now at MSOE, and came along to help.
The weather was less than ideal, but the Public Math booth was there for the Doors Open Milwaukee Block party. Visitors had the chance to play with math actives and test their Venn diagramming skills with a street survey.
Shevaun Watson, Director of the composition program in UWM’s English Department, and I met for coffee in April to talk about her work on the landscape of languages. Followers of Learn Deep know of our interest in maps as a point of engagement for students, and I was curious to learn more. There’s an interesting project in that work, particularly for schools with students who speak a diverse range of languages.
Towards what I had expected to be the end of our conversation, Shevaun asked what else we were working on. I mentioned an idea that had originated in conversations at Reagan High School. While the school had healthcare career tracks, students had little sense of the broad range of careers inside of healthcare or the varied paths people might take to get there. We thought an interesting way to address that would be to have students interview folks in a wide range of health care careers. The focus would not be on the classes they took or what their day to day work looks like, but the experiences they had which led them to their career and helped develop the skills they now use. We saw this as a process that could be used across domains, and, if the stories could be gathered and told by students across the community, a great resource for career exploration.
Shevaun was intrigued — she and her colleagues have been looking at ways to leverage the humanities for community engagement. They were also getting a little tired of reading “interest papers” on abortion, gun control, and legalizing marijuana. She asked “What if we gave you a couple of sections of a freshman English class to pilot the process?” Over the summer we met with Shevaun’s team and teachers from Reagan, New Berlin, and Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy to map out what that might look like, and what the high schools teachers would need to pull the work into their classes.
Our pilot is now underway. We tapped our network to assemble a pool of interview candidates that includes everyone from a community healthcare advocate to bio-medical engineers to sports medicine professionals to an attorney representing the rights of the disabled. Students will conduct their interviews the week of October 7th. We look forward to where this will lead.
Students from seven area high schools met a UWM yesterday for a session on occupational ergonomics lead by Madiha Saeed Ahmed from UWM’s College of Engineering. The students are part of this year’s Zoo Train Engineering Challenge, will is focused on improving the coal handling process for the Zoo’s steam locomotives.
The current process is to manually sift coal into buckets which can weigh 90 pounds when full. These are carried down an uneven walkway along the tracks where they are staged until needed. When the train staff need to re-load coal for the train, the buckets are dumped into the train’s tender, through an opening that is close to four feet off the ground. Needless to say, plenty of issues to look at.
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