Learning Goals
Students will be able to investigate firsthand perspectives of New Jersey teenagers and community-safety stakeholders to identify how empathy and evidence reveal user needs.
Students will be able to synthesize user research, public New Jersey data, and a fictionalized organized-crime network simulation to define an evidence-based community-safety problem.
Students will be able to model anonymized relationships and resource flows using network diagrams and matrices to reveal structural patterns within complex systems.
Students will be able to compare matrix representations of a fictionalized crime-risk network and a different system to determine how the same mathematical structure supports transferable strategies.
Students will be able to prototype a matrix-based resource-allocation tool that connects prevention strategies and stakeholder priorities to transparent mathematical criteria.
Students will be able to refine and justify a community-safety decision tool using user feedback, testing data, mathematical reasoning, and reflection on perseverance.
Products
User Research and Matrix Prototype Portfolio
Each student will submit a portfolio containing approved firsthand user research, an evidence-based problem statement, network and matrix analyses, a transfer comparison, and an individually tested low-fidelity decision-tool prototype. All organized-crime scenarios must remain fictionalized and anonymized, with no collection of active-case or personally identifying information.
New Jersey Community-Safety Decision Tool and Stakeholder Briefing
Teams will combine individual research and prototypes into a shared problem statement, higher-fidelity matrix-based resource-allocation tool, testing report, and interactive briefing for an authentic or simulated New Jersey stakeholder. The briefing will demonstrate the mathematics, explain how user evidence shaped decisions, and identify revisions and model limitations.
No rubric has been generated yet.