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Students

Project 1: Design a City of The Future

OVERVIEW:  In this project you will work with your team to design a city of the future.

 Before you begin designing your city:

  • Use the Student Planning Sheets found here to help to organize your research.
  • Review the questions to consider below.
  • Watch our interview with David Pellow, Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Global Environmental Justice Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Provide sustainable water, energy and food supplies
  • Include intervention and adaptation of climate change
  • And have resilience to deal with disasters

Your City design should incorporate infrastructure (such as water, transportation, and energy) and consider the roles of green infrastructure, smart system technology, and distributed systems in your design. Using what you have learned through the previous lessons and incorporating additional research, brainstorming with your team and planning design your City of the Future!

Student Planning Sheets

Questions to Consider
  • What do you think is most important to make a city more efficient? To make a city healthier? To make a city more resilient?
  • What types of tradeoffs do city planners face to accomplish those goals?
  • How can your design ensure that benefits are provided to all city residents, regardless of income, race, or ethnicity?
  • How might you overcome challenges to move from today’s infrastructure to a better one in the future?
Research Links To Get Started

Project 2: Creation of Public Campaign on Environmental Impact of Smartphones

OVERVIEW:  In this you will work with your team to create a campaign addressing the environmental impacts of smartphones. Your campaign will be designed as Public Service Announcements (PSA) to raise awareness of the problem and change public attitudes and behavior. 

Before you begin creating your public campaign:

  • Use the Student Planning Sheets found here to help to organize your research.
  • Review the questions to consider below.
  • Watch our interview with David Pellow, Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Global Environmental Justice Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara

This campaign will:

  • Need to incorporate at least two of the four elements of policy solutions

  • Promote elements of the circular model of production and use for smartphones

Student Planning Sheets

Questions to Consider

  • What are the biggest environmental impacts in the projection, use, and disposal of smartphones, including the resources required to build them?
  • What opportunities exist to reduce those impacts through alternative approaches to sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, use, reuse, and recycling?
  • Where do you think people could make the biggest impacts?
  • What environmental justice issues are associated with the production, use, and disposal of smartphones?
  • How could you help people make choices that lessen environmental impacts through:

    – Providing information,
    – Changing the decision context,
    – Creating incentives,and
    – Establishing new rules and regulation

Research Links To Get Started