Engineering News, Fall 2014

https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/eng_news/1028/thumbnail.jp

Increasing Access to Outdoor Play for Families of Children with Disabilities

Background. There are various benefits, supports, and barriers which contribute to participation in outdoor play for children with disabilities. Rainbow Tree Therapies (RTT) and its community face various accessibility challenges that limit outdoor play participation. Purpose. The purpose of this project was to develop educational materials and resources for families of children with disabilities who have experienced accessibility concerns. Approach. The approach of this project can be divided into 4 activities: (1) evaluation of RTT, (2) creation of accessible garden planters, (3) development of educational materials, and (4) analysis of survey results. Outcomes. There were seven survey responses, all of which identified themselves as parents. Respondents noted the desire to increase community accessibility, specifically including playgrounds as an area of need. Parents ranked high confidence levels in understanding accessibility, advocating for their child, and teaching their child self-advocacy skills following educational lesson participation. Implications. Making community spaces truly accessible and inclusive is a big undertaking that requires collaboration from leaders, professionals, and families. OT practitioners can and should undertake advocacy when considering accessibility, inclusion, and universal design

1993 Annual report on scientific programs: A broad research program on the sciences of complexity

This report provides a summary of many of the research projects completed by the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) during 1993. These research efforts continue to focus on two general areas: the study of, and search for, underlying scientific principles governing complex adaptive systems, and the exploration of new theories of computation that incorporate natural mechanisms of adaptation (mutation, genetics, evolution)

Returning to the Moon: Legal Challenges as Humanity Begins to Settle the Solar System – Full Transcript

On March 6, 2020, leading space lawyers gathered in the Moot Court Room of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University to discuss and debate the legal challenges and opportunities arising from the growing number of lunar missions in the planning stages in early 2020, in particular NASA’s Artemis Program which will for the first time establish a permanent human habitation on our moon through cooperation between NASA and its international partners (both public and private). The day-long symposium on Returning to the Moon: Legal Challenges as Humanity Begins to Settle the Solar System was organized by the Global Space Law Center (GSLC) together with the Global Business Law Review (GBLR). SpaceX and the Open Lunar Foundation sponsored the event (along with an auditorium full of local attorneys seeking Continuing Legal Education credits in Space Law!). What follows is a transcript of the symposium. This is a break from the traditional format of the American law journal, but the entire purpose of the symposium was to break free from canned presentations and see what comes of dynamic debate. The only way to preserve the special character of the fruit of this debate is to capture the actual conversation in a transcript

Dissolving boundaries among applied disciplines: a narrative study of transdisciplinary collaboration during a charrette

2021 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Charrettes have a long history of use in medical, architectural, and planning professions. An extensive literature search found little application of the charrette model implemented to advance, support, and identify transdisciplinarity (TD) research, transdisciplinary teaming models (TDM), transdisciplinary learning (TDL) supporting transformative learning (TL) among participants. This study highlighted differing approaches among teams as they navigated ideation and proposed solutions advancing comprehension among students of applied disciplines and how each approached, negotiated, and solved community-based problems. I implemented a TDM charrette to address TDL in educational settings. This two charrette case study implemented 1) an exploratory investigation joined a competition to create a high school of the future in underserved Montbello, Colorado, and 2) a proposal to renovate and develop a historic homestead on a working cattle ranch and wildlife reserve to support a multi-generational educational program, in Sedalia, Colorado. Charrettes included college students from architectural design, construction management, education, environmental sciences, and fish and wildlife. High school students were joined by POs from education, business and ranching professions, artists, and authors. Participants were challenged to create programs using site attributes. Charrette's culminated with team project proposals shared with invited stakeholders. Using Hall's four-phases of TD team based experiential learning and Kolb's Learning Style Models I used visual narrative and a sustainability lens to reflect and incorporate participant experiences and outcomes. Findings identified how students experienced charrettes, how they interacted with other disciplines, participant observers (PO)/facilitator observers (FO), and project stakeholders. TDM emphasized the importance of self-reflection revealed by mutual learning of transferable solutions, synthesis of results, and the visibility and relevance to problem solving. Outcomes showed how participants explored, described discipline knowledge; how shared skills shaped and influenced information sharing, leading to transformative learning (TL). Key findings identified knowledge derived from multiple modes of inquiry gained from TDL addressed problems, contributed to transferability. Challenges identified recruitment of participants from more than three disciplines. This study described and shared how participation advanced knowledge production and integration to solve unstructured problems. The TDM charrette supported TDL and knowledge production that bridged solution oriented approaches among participants leading to TL

Enabling social innovation assemblages : strengthening public sector involvement

Public sector interest in social innovation is growing rapidly around the world. The surge in activity has emerged, at least in part, in response to pressing social, environmental and economic issues and the increased recognition that many of these complex, inter-related ‘wicked’ and ‘squishy’ problems’ are unresponsive to traditional policy ‘levers’. However, it is only in recent years that substantial empirical research exploring public sector roles in enabling social innovation has emerged. This thesis contributes to this literature, taking a purposefully open and non-critical stance to allow for a broad exploration and in an attempt to think differently about possibilities. The epistemological framing of the study contributes to the Community Economies research tradition. I draw on several of its methods and tools, including using ‘reading for difference’ techniques to explore ‘weak theory’ propositions related to my three broad research questions. I develop and apply an experimental configuration of conceptual frameworks to uncover a multitude of ‘little narratives’ about public sector roles in enabling social innovation. The configuration includes the Diverse Economies Framework, which is used to inventory the agents and processes involved in what I identify through the research as ‘social innovation assemblages’. To draw out key decision-making and negotiation points between the entities involved a second framework combines three perspectives: adaptive lifecycle concepts; domains of social change activity; and a contextual specificity approach to growing and diffusing social value. These frameworks provide language tools which contribute to strengthening the efforts of those interested in enabling social innovation assemblages through public sector policymaking. Given the practical orientation and exploratory nature of the study, a case study approach was chosen as the overarching method for the study. The empirical research was undertaken iteratively, in two stages. The first stage involved the development of 21 snapshot case studies of social innovation assemblages based in Europe, the UK, Canada, and the United States. These case studies were analysed using selected language tools to reveal the different roles that the public sector can play in enabling social innovation assemblages. The findings of this stage were used as inputs to the second stage, which comprised an engaged research activity with 21 participants from two ‘user groups’. This engaged research activity was designed to build capacity around engaging with social innovation concepts, and to ‘reality test’ the language tools with participants. In the final thesis, 13 case studies that draw out each element of the two conceptual frameworks are presented. Through this analysis, and drawing on the input of the ‘user groups’, in the third stage, a specific domain of policymaking, namely social procurement, was selected for closer analysis. With reference to four in-depth case studies, I explore how social innovation assemblages are being enabled through public sector social procurement programs. In a key theoretical contribution, I combine the community economies framing of the study with the emerging literature on new public governance (NPG) frameworks. Through this unique combination of perspectives I show how tensions between participatory approaches to policymaking and the hierarchical decision-making structures and risk-averse cultures prevalent in the public sector can be navigated in ways that improve social relations whilst also improving accountability and transparency. Drawing together insights arising out of the research activities across the three stages, I identify nascent openings that point towards a new ethos in public sector policymaking. These openings include perspectives and language designed to ‘push back’ against prescriptive policymaking and offer a counter to ‘fast policy’ approaches to enabling and diffusing social innovation,. The resulting ethos positions public sector actors as more than ‘just part of the problem’. Through the study I show that public sector actors can play dynamic and unique roles in decentring the prevailing discourse of intractable ‘wicked problems’ and performing a new kind of economy