Orientation Term

Project Summary:

We interact with complex inventions, systems, and phenomena daily. But how often do we stop to really think about how those things work? What needed to happen, mechanically, for that car to transport you from your home to the grocery store? How were driving rules, patterns, and infrastructure envisioned and created? Who wrote the original laws related to driving, and what has the process been for those evolving and being enforced over time?

Most often, we notice when things don’t work correctly. Perhaps truly understanding how something works while it is working correctly, can help us be proactive about anticipating what might disrupt its proper functioning, and repair problems when they arise.

It’s time to get curious, and delve into the mechanics of things you take for granted on a daily basis. Select a topic, and then channel your inner child by posing the questions, “why” and “how” until you uncover how stuff works.

Project Summary:

Our return to school this year is different from ever before. We have different constraints, different needs, and different opportunities afforded to us. In many ways, we are seeing school and our society go back to the basics in order to prioritize and protect what is most fundamental and essential. So, that gave us an idea. We want to lean into that premise by inviting our projects to go back to the basics too.

Think about it! What skills used to be critical that have become obsolete? What tools do we rely heavily on, and what would happen if we lost access to those? What are the central elements of our society that are timeless, and prevail regardless of how things change around them? What basic knowledge or skills do you wish you had in order to be self-reliant? You can take this theme in many different directions. You may explore the original origins of something, teach yourself an older skill or craft, unpack to gain understanding of the basic premise behind something comlex (an idea, system, object, etc.) or go in any number of other directions. This theme is meant to spark ideas for you, rather than tell you where to go. How do you want to get back to the basics this fall?

Project Summary:

We all have our own unique ways of seeing things and moving through the world. What makes this so? Is our way the only way? How do we justify, accept, or reject worldviews that don’t match our own? What systems in our world shape our perspectives?

We will explore these variables in our own lives and in the lives of cultural change agents. In doing so we hope to identify patterns and look at ways we can reduce cultural and personal conflict.