How can you design an interdisciplinary project that solves a real problem in your community?
You will research one community problem across places and time using several sources and ideas from several fields.
You will compare individual and collective actions.
You will trace complex causes.
You will choose a practical response.
Use perspective. That means how you view a problem.
Local nonprofit leaders, city staff, and neighborhood association members will identify real needs.
They will review your project ideas.
You will use partner feedback, peer feedback, self-reflection, and focused questions to revise your proposed solution.
You will share your proposed solution.
Learning goals
You can use interdisciplinary lenses to explain how community problems, challenges, and opportunities change across places and time. Interdisciplinary means you use more than one field at once. You can develop and revise a research question. You can synthesize several sources. You can use causal reasoning to understand a local problem. Causal reasoning means you explain how one thing leads to another. You can compare individual and collective strategies. Then you can design an innovative interdisciplinary project. It should respond to a need from community partners. You can make shared decisions with a peer. You can resolve disagreements. You can take leadership while staying responsible for your independent project. You can present with empathy. You can use peer and community-partner feedback. You can reflect on your revisions and growth.
Standards
[Washington] SSS1.9-12.5 - Explain the challenge and opportunities of addressing problems over place and time using disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses.
[Washington] SSS3.4.1 - Draw on disciplinary concepts to explain the challenges people have faced and opportunities they have created in addressing local, regional, and global problems at various times and places.
[Washington] SSS3.9-12.6 - Assess options for individual and collective action to address local, regional, or global problems by engaging in self-reflection, strategy identification, and complex causal reasoning.
[Common Core] CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.7 - Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
[Common Core] CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.7 - Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
Competencies
Collaboration - Students co-design projects with peers, exercise shared-decision making, strengthen relational agency, resolve conflict, and assume leadership roles.
Critical Thinking & Problem Solving - Students consider a variety of innovative approaches to address and understand complex questions that are authentic and important to their communities.
Content Expertise - Students develop key competencies, skills, and dispositions with ample opportunities to apply knowledge and engage in work that matters to them.
Effective Communication - Students practice listening to understand, communicating with empathy, and share their learning through exhibiting, presenting and reflecting on their work.
Self Directed Learning - Students use teacher and peer feedback and self-reflection to monitor and direct their own learning while building self knowledge both in and out of the classroom.
Products
Create interview notes that capture a real need named by a local nonprofit leader, city staff member, or neighborhood association member. Build an individual research portfolio with several sources. Include focused questions, a timeline, a causal map, and comparisons across disciplines and places. Perspective means how you show space or point of view. Plan an action proposal with one peer. Use shared decisions. Set a clear plan for resolving disagreements. Present your draft to community partners and peers for feedback on its feasibility, impact, and attention to place and time. Submit a revised proposal and reflection. Explain how your cross-subject design addresses a real community problem.
Launch
Join a community needs forum with local nonprofit leaders, city staff, and neighborhood association members.
Record one challenge’s causes, effects, opportunities, and changes across places and time.
Compare how two disciplines, such as public health and economics, explain the challenge.
Pitch one early project idea to a community partner, receive feedback, and note one change you would make.
Write an initial response: How can you design an interdisciplinary project that solves a real problem in your community?
Exhibition
Present your interdisciplinary project at a community showcase for nonprofit leaders, city staff, neighborhood members, peers, and invited residents. Use a visual display, sample solution, and five-minute pitch to answer: How can you solve a real community problem? Explain research across disciplines, place, and time. Then compare action options through causes, tradeoffs, and likely outcomes. Tradeoffs mean what you gain and what you give up. Invite partners to name strengths and questions. Then submit your revised proposal and a reflection on their feedback.
