Students will launch the passion-based community change project by noticing local issues, connecting those issues to personal interests, hearing from a city government representative, and naming an initial direction they want to investigate.

Students will gather direct evidence about a local community issue through interviews, observation, and informational texts, then organize what people need, feel, and struggle with into an empathy artifact and an early problem-scope summary. They will use peer and teacher feedback during weekly check-ins and reflection circles to revise their notes, questions, and written plans before moving into idea generation.

Students will turn research and empathy evidence into a focused community problem statement and How Might We question, generate several different solution ideas, use peer and teacher feedback to revise their thinking, and choose one evidence-based direction to prototype next.

Students will turn their selected community-change idea into a low-fidelity prototype, test it with classmates and a representative outside voice, revise it through two feedback cycles, and prepare a concise stakeholder-facing presentation that shows how research evidence, user needs, and feedback shaped their design decisions.

Students will present their passion-based community change projects to an authentic audience at the open house, explain how research and feedback shaped their solution, and reflect on successes, challenges, community impact, and next steps.