GROUP: Verona Collins, Y lam, Emily Tsao, Edyn Marsland
What SDGs does your project target? What might be reasonable indicators for those SDGs?
Our project targets quality education, good health and wellbeing, and reducing inequality. By increasing the students’ knowledge about the arts, we can close the gap between the lack of arts education and the focus on standard subjects. The engagement of the students in the presentation as well as their general exposure to the art gallery will also allow them to experience what it’s like to be in a space like that. It’s an opportunity for them to get adjusted to the space. We also believe that quality education is extremely vital. Though education should focus on those core subjects, it’s just as important for students to learn about the arts. It could spike their curiosity, which in turn has the potential to become a discussion. We want the students to be able to reflect on the art pieces while not feeling overwhelmed in the space. Our technology allows for this to come to life, which adds to the quality of their education. Good health and wellbeing is another SDG we felt was a project target of ours; health is physical, but it is also mental. Our goal is to let this space be exciting and new but also comfortable. We want to prevent overstimulation as best as we can, and we genuinely want the students to be happy about seeing and learning the space.
Crystallize the larger challenge your venture seeks to address, the specific problems you are targeting, and the kinds of opportunities you hope to leverage.
Our main Grand Challenges are making art education available to students with learning/behavioral disabilities and creating a new way of learning that is different, but effective compared to the traditional education system. When considering Global (Mega) Trends, the largest trend we will be participating in is utilizing technology. To be specific, our team will learn how to use a 360 degree camera and its paired editing program to create educational content tailored for our specific audience. In addition, we will also be working with a classroom that supports a 360 degree shared experience. Dream-wise, when our educational virtual tours are finalized, it is likely that we can support classroom outreach for other schools or organizations to make use of the space and said technology. Currently, we are expecting to run into challenges when learning and eventually mastering the 360 degree camera along with its paired program. While working on this project goal, there is an opportunity to learn what students with learning and behavioral disabilities would want for their art education and there is a chance we can meet them personally as well.
Identify the two most important social, economic, and
environmental bottom lines that matter to your project:
Social: We want to increase arts education accessibility to the diverse population in the Lehigh Valley by building a strong relationship with the Lehigh Art Gallery and the Centennial school. Our project’s goal is to help minimize the learning gap that results from the rigid learning environment in the traditional schooling system. Continuously, the specific community we are trying to help are people with learning disabilities. We want to cater the resources we will create to them so they get the chance to engage in arts education without feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed.
Purpose: Our purpose is to integrate more technology into a classroom to create a different learning method for people who do not thrive in the existing learning environment. We are going to create 3D and 360 degree immersive learning content that can be experienced through projection. As a result, this will help people see learning in a new way so that they can build a better relationship with education. Moreover, we also understand that having the technology to create 3D and 360 degree content is new to the educational system, so our art tours and videos can also be accessed and viewed through a computer or phone so that people who want to learn more about the arts, but do not have the ability to go to an art gallery and experience it in person can still learn through the resources we create.
Describe ten cultural factors that might impact your project at various phases in its lifecycle.
Our project involves many cultural factors as any project of this scale would. Ten factors we have identified as being highly important are as follows: socioeconomic status, region, conflict resolution, verbal language, body language, values, emotion expression, identity, shared experiences, and religion. Language and emotion expression will impact our project throughout its entirety as our content is going to be tailored to an audience with a wide range of abilities. Expression in all forms will vary greatly and it is important for our team to consider and learn from this.
Give three examples of cultural practices that can be leveraged to address community / market problems.
We can utilize cultural practices such as collaboration, artistic expression, and community outreach geared towards our project goals. It is important to give light and amplify the voices to those who are not heard in the traditional learning space. Collaboration and communication with these groups is key to creating a safe environment to exercise their creativity and be exposed to new educational experiences.