LESSON READINGS
You can access pre-readings and skill lab materials on this page or the document below.
WEEK 1
-
REQUIRED
→ RethinkX: Rethinking Humanity Report (Intro only) OR watch the video
→ The 2050 City: What Civic Innovation Looks Like Today - And Tomorrow
→ Design Thinking for Social Innovation
Starting with “The Origins of Design Thinking” pgs. 33-35
OPTIONAL
→ Innovation Beats Invention Hands Down
→ What Is Empathy and Why Is It So Important in Design Thinking?
→ Our Civic Innovation Mission: A conceptual framework
WEEK 2
-
REQUIRED
→ Learn About Environmental Justice
Note: This link leads to the archived version of this page (via “the Way Back Machine”, a very cool resource) because it was recently removed from the official EPA site. As a result, not all links on this page are clickable.
→ Welcome to “Cancer Alley,” Where Toxic Air Is About to Get Worse
→ Video: Our planet is swimming in plastic. Here’s how we fix thatOPTIONAL
→Through the Smog: The Climate Report
→ How Marea Verde Is Modeling A Holistic Solution to the Plastic Pollution Problem
WEEK 3
-
REQUIRED
→ Explainer: What is ‘human-centered design’?
→ Video: Designing Urban Places that Don't Suck (a sense of place)
→ Make Way for the One-Minute City
→ Video: How Rotterdam's Flood Defenses Could Help Save Us All
OPTIONAL
→15 Innovations that Shaped the City
→ Video: Urban Designer Answers More City Planning Questions | Tech Support | WIRED
→ Video: Cities as Living Laboratories: The Smart City Projects of Amsterdam, Singapore, and Barcelona
→ The case for good design: Urban Design
WEEK 4
-
REQUIRED
→ Video: The Non-Market Solution to the Housing Crisis
→ A solution to America's affordable housing crisis→ Naming Housing as a Human Right Is a First Step to Solving the Housing Crisis
→ Video: How the real estate financial model is harming us
→ Video: Housing as a Human Right
→ The Human Right to Adequate Housing
→ The Financialization of Housing and Its Implications For Community Development
WEEK 5
-
REQUIRED
→ Video: Brooklyn Mental Health Court Rethinks Incarceration for Individuals With Mental Illnesses
→ Aims and significance of alternatives to imprisonmentOPTIONAL
→ Taking Restorative Justice Seriously (pg. 640-648; 675-680)
→ How should the U.S. presidential candidates think about criminal justice reform?
→ Righting Wrongs the Maori Way
→ Video: Mass Incarceration in the US
WEEK 6
WEEK 7
-
REQUIRED
→ Knowledge Access: The Effect of Carnegie Libraries on Innovation
→ The Creative Ways Teachers Are Using ChatGPT in the Classroom
→ Educators are using TikTok to teach history you might not learn in school
OPTIONAL
→ Video: The Case for Innovation in Education
→ The Decade for Innovation in Education
WEEK 8
-
REQUIRED
→ America is exceptional in the nature of its political divide
→ Video: How to break the two-party hold on American politics
→ Addressing Negative Partisanship with Mobile Voting
→ Fixing Our Politics: The Case for Mobile Voting
OPTIONAL
→ Can local news save democracy?
→ Removing Barriers to the Ballot Box: The Case for Mobile Voting
→ Organizations Transforming Polarization & Division
→ Re-imagining democracy for the 21st century, possibly without the trappings of the 18th century